Sunday, August 12, 2012

Trazos de Memoria

Trazos de Memoria
Illustraciones animadas creadas a partir de los testimonios del archivio audiovisual de Londres 38, espacio de memorias
Londres 38, 2012.


Trazos de Memoria seeks to re-enact the recent history of Chile's dictatorship and its widespread torture and macabre annihilation of opponents. A short, illustrated text with testimonies from torture survivors and relatives of detenidos desaparecidos, the book imparts a sliver of memory narrative in flashes of recollections.

The testimonies are taken from Londres 38's audiovisual archive. Guillermo Rodriguez Morales (former MIR militant), Miguel Angel Rebolledo (former MIR militant), Mario Irarrazabal (survivor of Londres 38), Erika Hennings (former MIR militant, survivor of Londres 38 and wife of detenido desaparecido Alfonso Chanfreau), Luz Encina Silva (human rights activist and mother of detenido desaparecido Mauricio Jorquera Encina, former MIR militant) and Gastón Muñoz Briones (former MIR militant and torture survivor) disclose their experience of dictatorship practices, notably the struggle of each individual against the uncertainty of their plight.

As this book shows, the struggle against oblivion was a collective commencing far before Pinochet's insistence to obliterate memory with regard to torture and disappearances. Resisting lies regarding detention, blindfolds and unknown destinations, detainees relied on memory and verbal communication to construct their narratives and identity within history, in order to ensure recognition of other torture victims whose disappearance remains shrouded in violence and oblivion. A very striking testimony by Erika Hennings describes the manner in which detainees would describe themselves to others incarcerated with them - one of the women participating in this exercise was Muriel Dockendorff Navarrete, a disappeared former MIR militant whose name appears in the List of the 119, or Operacion Colombo.

The book is free to download from Londres 38 espacio de memorias. An innovative manner of imparting memory, I highly recommend this book for anyone willing to join the fight against dictatorship oblivion; also for others whose journey through history and memory needs to be rekindled.

Neither forgiveness, nor oblivion. A steadfast struggle for justice within memory.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

La Cultura Rechaza Violencia Contra Pueblo Mapuche

A worldwide initiative by artists and intellectuals to publicly condemn state violence directed against the Mapuche people of Chile. Sign and share the petition to garner widespread support. http://www.g80.cl/noticias/noticiacompleta.php?varbajada=15824