Geographies of Truth: Art and symbolic repair at Casa de la Memoria Museum

KEYWORDS:

• Museum
• memory
• art
• repair
• truth-seeking
• transitional justice

“Dirty and clean water have the same sound. They follow the same ancient gap between the stones. The ear errs. Neither the eye nor the nose errs: that rotten water smells of death even if it sounds like life. A wrinkled paper and a mountain have reliefs, similar folds; so does the skin. There are wounds on the earth, self-inflicted wounds or wounds we inflicted on her. We open graves or exhumated bodies in search of answers, looking for something that explains violence or lies. There is a desire in the open earth, a desire to swallow you, as in the open skin. ‘A wound that hurts but is not felt’”

(Museo Casa de la Memoria, 2017)

Introduction

In 2016 Casa de la Memoria Museum, in Medellin, Colombia initiated a research process to create an exhibition about Truth Commissions. The decision to approach this topic was driven by the socio-political context of the country, particularly the approval in Congress of a Peace Agreement¹ signed between the Colombian government and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army) (FARC-EP). The Peace Agreement included a new mechanism for truth, justice, reparation and non-repetition, known as the Sistema Integral de Verdad Justicia Reparación y No Repetición. This comprised three distinct though interwoven elements: (1) Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz (Special Jurisdiction for Peace) (JEP); (2) La Comisión de la Verdad (The Truth Commission) (CV); and (3) Unidad de Búsqueda de Personas dadas por Desaparecidas en el Contexto y en Razón del Conflicto Armado (Unit for the Search for Persons Reported Missing in the Context of and as a Result of Armed Conflict). No part of the system takes precedence over another, and each element fulfills its function without duplicating those of the others, for which there are collaboration protocols and an Inter-institutional Coordination Committee. Likewise, the system has a territorial, communal and gender focus, which corresponds to the particular characteristics of victimization for different regions and populations, with special protection and attention given to women and children who were – and continue to be – victims of the armed conflict.

Casa de la Memoria Museum is one of the first spaces in the country to work with memories of the conflict. An exhibition dedicated to the theme of Truth Commissions therefore aligned with our overarching aim to explore and discuss concepts such as truth, justice, memory, loss and repair. The exhibition emerged through research work carried out with and for the communities and people who had been inquiring into the truth of events in which they were direct or indirect victims. The content derived from this research process led to the Geographies of Truth exhibition, displayed at the museum from July 2017 to July 2018.

During the first half of 2017, the Museum conducted research to address truth-seeking processes and truth commissions in Colombia and around the world. Even if this was the first truth commission to take place in Colombia, we recognized that similar exercises had been carried out in other places that sought to deal with a violent and difficult past. The goal of the project was to inform and guide debate regarding the Truth Commission created by the Colombian Peace Agreement, drawing on examples of similar processes in other countries.

The exhibition itself was a journey composed of six moments, taking in both the exterior and interior of the museum building. It included artistic and testimonial interventions in the public space around the building, on the facade of the museum (Figure 1), in the Fabiola Lalinde laboratory, and in the permanent hall of the museum, ending in Hall 3 where the main staging of the research took place.

Figure 1. Casa de la Memoria Museum building facade. Photographer: Sergio Gomez, personal archive, 2017.

This paper presents the methodology used by the Casa de la Memoria Museum to create the contents of the Geographies of Truth exhibition. This curatorial exercise aimed to address symbolic repair in the aftermath of a conflict, a process that shares much with the social research undertaken within Truth Commissions themselves. Through document-tracking, interviews, surveys and creation-reflection laboratories, the research aimed to provide a starting point for the re-presentation of knowledge through art. How can research and creative practice be brought together to confront violent pasts within museums, and how might such processes support the demands of reparative justice?

Casa de la Memoria Museum

Museums are places where the past is negotiated, leading to the reformulation of social and cultural values. Typically, the institution of the museum is seen as a place that guards and preserves assets deemed important to a culture (Black, 2011; Macdonald, 2003, 2006; Weils, 1990; Ostow 2008). In a museum of memory, however, “assets’ cannot be valued, classified, measured or quantified in the same way as works of art, archaeological objects or natural history collections. Memorial museums are born out of a need to narrate and to some extent denounce human rights violations. In so doing they attempt to make moral and symbolic reparation for victims and promote research and reflection on acts of violence, to encourage non-repetition. Museums that aim for such outcomes must embrace new practices compared to traditional museums (Assmann, 1999, 2004; Erll, 2012; Crooke, 2018; Sodaro, 2018). These practices will be given or determined by the transitional context in which the museum emerges. For example, unlike the first memory museums to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, such as Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum or Yad Vashem, which focused on collecting evidence of the extermination of the Jewish people through the material remains of the tragedy, Casa de la Memoria Museum places greater emphasis on the participatory construction of memories, with the collection of relics outside the museum’s scope of interest (Valderrama et al., 2018).

The main aim of Casa de la Memoria Museum is to enable practices of coexistence through the circulation of memories of the violent past, in the process constructing cultural expressions and formal commemorations that can support symbolic reparation and non-repetition. To achieve this goal the museum engages in Construcion Participativa de Memorias (Participatory Construction of Memories), which starts by “recognizing different forms of representation of the facts and experiences of the conflict, because there is no such thing as a universal understanding” (Valderrama et al., 2019, p. 368). Such an approach aims to ensure that the research is always open and pluralistic, to collect the greatest possible spectrum of voices from a conflict that has not completely ceased. Casa de la Memoria Museum therefore works with the testimonies, experiences and intangible heritage of people directly affected by violence to create meaningful exhibitions, research and educational programs.

The project to create Casa de la Memoria Museum began in 2006 in response to a citizen initiative ascribed to the Victims’ Assistance Program of Medellin Mayor’s Office, which proposed the creation of a space for the participative representation of memories, exhibits, and academic meetings (for example), providing tools to redress the traumas of violence that have been experienced or are being experienced. The Museum opened its doors in 2011, offering exhibitions, educational activities and a broader cultural program for free for everyone.

In societies making the transition from massive violations of human rights and armed conflict to some form of political reconciliation, museological interventions in the form of memory museums have gained importance (Sodaro, 2018). Evidence suggests that memory museums provide significant insights into how societies might advance beyond the reflection and understanding of a difficult past, to a point where trauma and loss become significant agents in negotiating a contested present. In so doing, memory museums such as Casa de la Memoria Museum do not merely depict past events, they influence the cultural reconstruction and re-interpretation of the past through social research that may be combined with an aesthetic or emotional experience within the broader museum script. This curatorial practice brings about exhibitions that are “deliberately performative, in the sense that the visitor must be more than a mere spectator to the experiences of the violent past” (Crooke, 2018, p. 1).

Conflict and violence in Colombia: a brief history

Colombia has been in the midst of an internal armed conflict for several decades. From the civil wars of the nineteenth century to the struggle between liberals and conservatives in the first half of the twentieth century, the country has been plunged into a violent political and social polarization, fragmenting relations between individuals, communities and institutions. In the 1960s, new armed actors related with conflicts inherited from La Violencia² and the international dynamics of the Cold War and the Cuban Revolution emerged. From the 1970s onwards, the first self-defence groups appeared, and drug trafficking also began; both phenomena gained strength in the late 1980s and early 1990s, leading to the emergence of the Auto Defensas Unidas de Colombia (United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia) (AUC).

Since the 1980s, negotiated solutions to the socio-political conflict have been sought. These efforts included: the peace process with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army) (FARC-EP) in the municipality of La Uribe, between 1982-1986; the peace process with the Movimiento 19 de Abril (April 19th Movement) better known by its acronym M-19 in 1990; and the various agreements that led to the demobilization and reintegration of groups such as the Ejército Popular de Liberacion (Popular Liberation Army) (EPL), the Quintín Lame and the Workers’ Revolutionary Party (PRT). Subsequently, in 2003 a negotiation process was signed with the AUC, which led to the demobilization of the paramilitaries in 2005.

In 2016, the Colombian government and the FARC-EP signed the Havana Peace Agreement, which sought to put an end to the conflict with this armed group by discussing issues such as comprehensive rural reform, political participation, the substitution of illicit crops, reparations for victims, the handover of weapons and reincorporation of the combatants to civil life, among other elements. Despite the progress represented by the agreements, their implementation has been hampered by a polarized socio-political scenario, the assassination of hundreds of social leaders in the territories, the emergence of new FARC dissidents and the presence of other armed groups such as the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (The National Liberation Army) (ELN) and criminal gangs in the territories previously occupied by the FARC-EP.

Transitional justice: memory, truth and repair

Societies such as Colombia, which have experienced prolonged periods of violence, have turned to mechanisms such as transitional justice to end the conflict. This form of justice seeks to re-establish a state whose socio-legal structures have been broken and where serious violations of the population’s human rights have been committed. Through this process, transitional justice aims to prioritize victims’ rights through the establishment of minimum standards of justice and alternative sentences for the perpetrators (Alexander et al., 2004; Gready, 2011; Macdonald, 2013; Stan & Nedelsky, 2013).

Transitional justice does not have a uniform international treaty, as each state approaches it in a different way. However, The Chicago Principles on Post-Conflict Justice has grouped together some common practices to which states must adhere to guarantee rights in these scenarios, with basic guidelines for designing and implementing policies to address past atrocities. The principles of post-conflict justice affirm that there must be a search for truth and investigations into the most serious human rights violations, as well as the prosecution of those responsible and reparation for the victims, stating that “the success of transitional justice depends on the strategies of national public consultations and the participation of civil society and of the victims and their families” (Bassiouni, 2007, p. 16). Among the mechanisms suggested are Truth Commissions, which are implemented to address the right to truth of victims, their families and society at large through a number of interrelated objectives, such as: establishing an accurate historical record of past violations; determining individual and/or organizational responsibility; providing an official forum in which victims’ stories can be heard and acknowledged; challenging impunity through objective research that is useful to policy makers and others; facilitating national reconciliation and open acknowledgement of wrongdoing; and recommending reparations, institutional reforms and other policies (Bassiouni, 2007; Dixon & Tenove, 2013; Matwijkiw, 2007).

Similarly, the third principle states that as part of moral reparation there should be commemorations and tributes that can help social reconciliation and healing. It also establishes the importance of taking responsibility as a means of “fostering social understanding, facilitating the process of national reconstruction and facilitating forgiveness on the part of victims and their families” (Bassiouni, 2007, p. 16). Importantly, one of the objectives of both individual and national commemoration is to contribute to repair and reconciliation (Principle 5).

In recent years Colombia has been through two transitional justice processes, one in the framework of the disarmament and demobilization agreement with the AUC under Law 975 of 2005, better known as Ley de Justicia y Paz (Justice and Peace Law), and the other in the framework of the Peace Agreement with the FARC-EP under Ley de Victimas y Restitucion de Tierras, Ley 1448 de 2011 (Victims and Land Restitution, Law 1448 of 2011) known as Victims’ Law. Article 8 of the Victims’ Law stipulated that the search for truth, justice and reparation through the lens of transitional justice has the “ultimate goal of achieving national reconciliation and lasting and sustainable peace” (Congreso de la Republica de Colombia, 2011).

The purpose of this law was to establish a set of judicial, administrative and socio-economic measures, with an individual and collective focus, for the benefit of people who have suffered loss because of breaches of International Humanitarian Law or serious violations of Human Rights, which occurred during the internal armed conflict. According to The Chicago Principles on Post-Conflict Justice, museums are part of mechanisms of commemoration, education and historical memory (principle 5).

The purpose of this brief overview of the international context is to highlight the different legal frameworks that have shaped the workings of justice, memory, truth and repair at the national level. These efforts have arisen in parallel to local initiatives, such as the one that frames Casa de la Memoria Museum in Medellin, which – although it responds to the same dynamics of overcoming violence – is strongly anchored to local practices. As Amy Sodaro explains “the massive project of coming to terms with Colombia’s violent past is just beginning” (Sodaro, 2018, p. 3).

Geographies of Truth

As mentioned above, one of the methodological pillars of Casa de la Memoria Museum is the Construcion Participativa de Memorias (Participatory Construction of Memories). This process starts by recognizing the importance of different forms of representation of the facts and experiences of conflict to develop exhibits on the violence in Colombia. The goal is to ensure that research is always open and pluralistic, to collect the greatest possible spectrum of voices and points of view. There is a special emphasis on horizontal dialogue and going into the territories and communities to learn, as this is where experiences and knowledge related to the conflict are located (Valderrama et al., 2019). This process bears many similarities to social science research, with an extended review of literature, the collecting of original data, and the analysis of material. However, this is undertaken to arrive at a work product – the exhibition – that will resonate with people intellectually, emotionally and physically, engaging their senses as well as their hearts and minds.

This research methodology allows each subject who participates in the process to share their experiences of loss and violence, giving authenticity to the final exhibition. By giving voice to the victims, the museum seeks to acknowledge the lack of political recognition and accountability in Colombia. The performative aspects are vital to the realization of these aims, as it is essential that the viewer is drawn into a greater understanding and awareness. Ultimately, this curatorial practice attempts to encourage collective action focused on greater recognition of the losses related to the Colombian conflict (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Main entrance of Casa de la Memoria Museum in Medellín, Colombia. Photographer: Adriana Valderrama, personal archive, 2017.

The exhibition Geographies of Truth was shown at the museum between July 2017 and July 2018. For this exhibition, the research methodology described above included four main components: document-tracking, interviews, surveys and creation-reflection laboratories. Each of these methods yielded different types of data and materials that were then assimilated into the museographic script and experience. For example, the document-tracking findings were used to create the Los Caminos de la Verdad (The Roads of Truth) experience, while interview results were used to create the Cuerpos de Sentido (Body of Sense) display (Figures 3–6). The main finding through this work was that it is impossible to speak of the truth of the conflict, because “the truth involved in each community is determined by the characteristic of the territory and the particular logic of war in each place” (Valderrama et al., 2019, p. 375).

Figures 3-6. Cuerpos de Sentido (Body of Sense) display. Table with 6 rotating rings and 6 reading positions, which correspond to 6 simultaneous conversations. These conversations were given through the testimonies of the participants in the laboratories and the interviews. Photographer: Adriana Valderrama, personal archive, 2017.

Figure 7. 1820 GEOGRAPHIES by Sergio Gómez. Photographer: Sergio Gómez, personal archive, 2016.

Figure 8. DELIKATESSEN by Sergio Gómez. Photographer: Sergio Gómez, personal archive, 2016.

Figure 9. Casa de la Memoria Museum building facade. Photographer: Sergio Gómez, personal archive, 2017.

This curatorial practice made it possible to contrast truth-seeking processes in Medellín, Antioquia, Colombia and internationally, to identify their origins, motivations and effects. It also made it possible to compare truth-seeking initiatives and to analyze the emergence of the Sistema Integral de Verdad Justicia Reparación y No Repetición (Comprehensive System for Truth, Justice, Reparation and Non-Repetition) (SIVJRNR) approved by the Colombian Congress in 2016, in light of the international context and the demands of international human rights organizations. The Creation and Production Committee of the museum oversaw the final stages of the exhibition. A large part of the museum team contributed to the project, from content creation and education to curating and public relations, drawing on diverse professional disciplines – psychology, history, political science, architecture, graphic design, curatorship, pedagogy, social communications, and journalism, among others – helping to transform the results of the research into museographic resources.

Parallel to the Construcion Participativa de Memorias, the museum invited the architect, artist and photographer Sergio Gómez to work on the exhibition. Since 2015 Gómez had been developing an artistic project that explored the perception of a surface or reality from multiple perspectives. Through a process of applying different material procedures such as tearing, folding, creasing, drawing and superimposing, Gómez creates photographic surfaces that appear to have images of geographies, territories and bodies engraved on them. Gómez’s aesthetic language and the technical execution of his work allowed us, the museum workers, to represent the complexity of defining a common truth acceptable to all. As Hector Abad Faciolince stated, “In Sergio Gómez’s work there is always the doubt of whether one has seen right, whether one has heard or smelled right. There is always the doubt of whether the earth, the crease, the water, the wound that we see, reflects pain or happiness” (Figure 7) (Museo Casa de la Memoria, 2017).

Gómez makes his artwork in the manner of an “exquisite corpse” – an arbitrary act of assemblage that leads to imaginary geographies made of the earth, the flesh, and our violence against both:

“I use two types of images: straight photo or manipulated. Blending these two approaches. I deploy them to work together. Stacking layers of meaning – animated, printed, and wrinkled, sheets that unfold and interchange like multiple faces of the same surface – the image coalesces and disappears and appears again, revealing how our mind forms its elusive perception of the real world” (Figure 8) (Museo Casa de la Memoria, 2017).

For the exhibition Geographies of Truth, Gómez held workshops with the different groups of victims who participated in the research. His aim in this process was to create a gesture, an artistic intervention that might represent their different experiences through the metaphor of soil and earth. Victims collected and donated soil and mud – the very substratum of the conflict – from the different places where violent events occurred to create an intervention on the façade of the museum building (Figure 9). This intervention represented the archaeological nature of the search for truth: a murky practice where one must dig and be puzzled as one continues digging. This artistic gesture helped the museum to transcend the fractured status of the collected data, the archive and the testimonies to open new horizons of possible meaning for the conflict in the present.

This interpretive strategy aimed to foster an emotional and imaginative response that might stay with and influence the visitor long after their encounter. Indeed, the exhibition as a whole sought to convey meaning through sensory as well as discursive modes of interpretation. Sound, imagine, space and light were arranged in such a way as to encourage visitors to find broader forms of understanding in relation to their own experiences of violence. The exhibition was an invitation to explore and sensitize museum visitors to processes of truth-seeking in the context of the armed conflict. This deliberately performative approach sought to generate understanding about the varied relationships between the territory, the victims and the persistent claims of those affected by violence, told through evocative spaces and experiences (Figure 10).

Figure 10. El Rio. Three-channel video projected on a continuous screen on the wall, in the central hall of Casa de la Memoria Museum. A stretch of the Medellín River in Barbosa, the water flows from right to left. “The river has become a depository of bodies; it detaches them from the place where the event takes place. Floating bodies that mark the landscape because those in the depths can no longer be seen”. Photographer: Sergio Gómez, personal archive, 2016.

Many of the violent acts committed in the framework of the Colombian conflict were committed in public space, intended to convey a strong message to society in general, rather than just individuals or combatants. In such circumstances, it follows that the remembrance of events must also include a public act. Beyond sharing memories within the privacy and intimacy of the home, the public act of remembering losses must be directed both at the people who were deeply associated with these events, as well as at those who may have no connection with the deceased or traumatized.

Geographies of Truth wanted to make audiences reflect on the reasons why the living remember; be it cathartic processes of sharing, the desire to never forget, memory as resistance or the search for truth and justice. The accompanying works of art spoke to an imagined community, created through physical and intellectual encounter and exchange, and through the interactions between the artist and victims of the conflict. These interactions were then translated or transmitted to museum visitors obliquely rather than directly, in recognition of the difficulty of communicating such experiences. In the aftermath of conflict, designing exhibitions that aim to somehow repair injustices requires a curatorial practice where the museum becomes a memorial space, one in which different communities are invited to participate in the act of remembering. A space where not only losses and injuries are reported, but a space where visitors are also reminded of the living – those people who have made a public intervention and invited us to participate. For this purpose art becomes central, making use of structures of communication without using language itself. This has the advantage of articulating some sense of truth without having to deal with the more didactic requirements of transmitting knowledge.

Working with art through temporary interventions such as Geographies of Truth allows the museum to become a more inclusive space; a space that seeks to repair the social bond rather than preserve the divisions and ruptures left by the conflict. The artist’s work with the victims brought together ordinary voices and multiple narrative layers. As a facilitator of this intergroup contact, art can have a positive impact on society at large.

Conclusions

The history of violence in Colombia is complex and varies according to the dynamics of each territory, its geography, history and economy. The richness of Colombia’s geography has been exploited by different armed actors operating in the different regions, leaving marks in each territory, as well as scars in the social bond of the communities inhabiting these regions. The territories and their inhabitants are witnesses to different facts. Hence, the research methodology used to construct the contents of the Geographies of Truth exhibition sought to conceptualize “truth” as a collective historical construction in which it is not possible to accept a single narrative.

This truth, fragmented by the different experiences of each community, forced us to recognize the micro and macro dynamics of the conflict and the importance of investigating the structural causes of the conflict in-depth. Although common, these were experienced differently in each region. Here it is important to mention that in Colombia many of those who participated in the violence were also victims of that violence, as they were exposed to bombings, kidnappings, and even death. This continued following reintegration into civilian life, with many people involved in the conflict assassinated after the official peace process (Congreso de la República de Colombia, 2011; Hermamdez et al., 2022; Pastrana, 2021). For these reasons, the experiences of both victims and perpetrators were represented in the display, as each must be seen as part of the broader narrative of violence in Colombia.

In the exhibition, the testimonies and narratives of research participants were used to broaden and interrogate the concept of truth. Additionally, by using the metaphor of geography as truth, the museum became an active agent in the process of symbolic repair by recognizing the complexity of the armed conflict in Colombia, as well as the serious damage caused by the different armed groups. While the Victims’ Law represents an unprecedented step toward visibility, recognition and reparation for vulnerable groups who suffered during the conflict – all in accordance with the principles of International Humanitarian Law – it is particularly relevant to ask how the guidelines established through this act are put into practice. Museums can play a vital role in such processes, as shown in the Geographies of Truth project. The place of art in this work also needs to be highlighted. Geographies of Truth was a museological experience where art allowed us to symbolize and to some extent represent the horrors of war, but also enact some sense of repair. Such emotional and imaginative strategies are essential in repairing the wounds of conflict, and promoting a more peaceful coexistence.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Adriana Valderrama Lopez

Adriana Valderrama Lopez is a Psychologist with a Master in Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution and PhD researcher in the School of Art and Humanities in the Programme of Heritage and Museum studies at Ulster University. Adriana has worked as a full-time professor in the School of Law and Political Science at Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana where she lectured on subjects related with conflict, transitional justice, and political philosophy with a focus on critical theory and psychoanalysis. Her current research examines contested curatorial practice in societies dealing with a difficult past such as Colombia and Norther Ireland. She is the former director (2016-2018) of Casa de la Memoria Museum, Medellin, Colombia.

Notes

1 Between the years 2012 and 2016 the Colombian government led by President Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018) negotiated with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army) (FARC-EP) to end the Colombian conflict, which eventually led to the Peace Agreement. Negotiations began in September 2012 and took place mainly in Havana, Cuba. Negotiators announced a final agreement to end the conflict in August 2016. However, a referendum to ratify the agreement on 2 October 2016 was unsuccessful after 50.2% of voters voted against the agreement with 49.8% in favour. Subsequently, the Colombian government and FARC signed a revised peace agreement on 24 November and sent it to Congress for ratification instead of holding a second referendum. Both houses of Congress ratified the revised peace agreement on 29–30 November 2016.

2 La Violencia was a ten-year civil war (1948-1958) between the Colombian Conservative Party and Colombian Liberal Party.