Heritage and memory

In most of the contexts, there is a clear differentiation between heritage and memory, in which memory refers to the mental process of recalling or holding onto individual or group past experiences or events through encoding, storing, and retrieving information (APA, 2021). This process can be influenced by personal biases or the social context, and it can change over time as new experiences or information emerges.

On the other hand, heritage refers to the cultural, historical, and social traditions and legacies that are passed down from generation to generation. Heritage is often seen as collective, representing a larger cultural and historical context that shapes and informs individual experiences. According to the UNESCO (2014) "Cultural heritage is, in its broadest sense, both a product and a process, which provides societies with a wealth of resources that are inherited from the past, created in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations"

Both concepts share the sense of an on going process that is influenced by the particularities of each context in the present. To better understand the link between memory and heritage and how one influence the other, I would like to bring to the table the Colombian case.

Historical Memory: the Colombian case

Colombia is a country that has lived in an internal armed conflict for more than 60 years due to drug trafficking and political differences that ended up in the creation of several guerillas and paramilitary groups. Thus, as part of the peace treatment process run between the government and the illegal groups, the institution for the building of historical memory emerged.

The main goal of this institution is to collect, recover, preserve, and analyse all the material and oral testimonies regarding the violation of human rights in the frame of the armed conflict by all the actors involved, victims, members of the illegal armed forces, social and political leaders, public servants, among others. Since the cognitive process of memory is subjective and influenced by several individual and social factors, the collection of testimonies of several actors in a moment when the war is still alive and the need for reconciliation and peace is more than ever helps to find the most similar version to the true, in addition to showing a wider vision of the complexity of the situation beyond the duality between good and bad.

Giving voice to the actors of the story is essential to provide societies with a wealth of resources that allow them to build a better present and future, that promotes equity and the conditions to find alternatives to solve conflicts and build a peaceful culture, their cultural heritage.

One of the main products of this process is the creation of the Museum of Memory to reinforce the building of collective history through the stories said from different perspectives. This is an attempt to repair the damage caused to the victims, look forward to reconciliation, dignify their lives, and prevent the repetition of these events.

Victim reparation can be individual or collective, moral, material, or symbolic. On this matter, the creation of the museum falls under the category of symbolic reparation and its objective is to bring to light the stories and faces that have taken part in the Colombian war. Currently, the state, the private sector, civil society, and international cooperation are working together to make it possible.

This is envisioned to be not only a place for the victims but for the whole of Colombian society to discuss and reflect on a topic that touched all of us, directly or indirectly, to think critically about the causes and conditions that allowed the armed conflict to happen and last, as well as building the strategies to don't repeat them.

Besides the museum, several local initiatives to build memory were and are supported and encouraged in the process, including plays, performances, sculptures, and paintings, among others. The museum is only one of the strategies developed, but it is clear that it is a limited resource, impossible for it to reach all the society and to represent every victim and actor involved, that is why building memory in Colombia is a multi-strategic process that considers the particularities and necessities of each region that constitute a pluri-ethnic and multi-diverse context.

Click below to read more about the institution for building historical memory from the original font (resource available in spanish)

Memory linked to places

How to make a place become historical?

Altar created by the mother of a victim of force dissapearence to honor his son. The altar occupies a special place in her house.

Fragmentos monument made by Doris Salcedo, Colombian artist. The floor in the room is made by molten guns that belonged to one of the biggest guerilla group. This room is currently used to make important national decisions.

Las cristinas del conflicto exposition of rag dolls made by a mother whose daugther was victim of forced dissappearance. The dolls travel all around the country and are exhibit in public places like shopping centres.

How does this contribute to our project?

The Colombian case is a beautiful example of how building memory and heritage is not only possible but powerful. The space of a museum, as we know it, is usually a place built by others, we go and visit the museum that already existed before and we learn about our history through the lenses of the persons who had the power to decide what was important, what was not, and why. The Colombian project to build memory was born out of the necessity of giving voice to the people who were silenced in the construction of their history which teaches us that we have a voice and we can use it, we can decide what is important for us, we can build a memory of our stories, we can choose which places are relevant for those stories and how we want them to be remembered and transmitted to the next generations. Our memories have a place in our heritage.

The historical places

Considering the power we have to build our history and reflecting on our heritage regarding hormonal cycles, we started thinking about where did we learn about our cycles? How to find relevant historical places for private stories? Our conversation took us to the most private places where we had embarrassing or uncomfortable experiences, places where we finally dared to ask questions, or even just to reflect individually on what is happening and why do I feel the way I do.
Thus, we want to reclaim spaces that are deemed mundane, as sites of heritage. Bedrooms, kitchens, toilets, gardens, nature, streets, and classrooms, all hold special significance to how we understand and corporeally experience menstrual cycles. The savoir-faire around menstrual cycles is most often transmitted in these spaces, and this transmission influences a new generation’s performativity and approaches around this topic.
We aim to make these places become historical through filling them with memories, our memories that can be similar to other's, and the other's memories that may had happened in the same spaces. Since memories are intangible and only transmittable through oral language, actions, movements, and objects, we want to include all these elements in our performance, starting with our bodies and from there, thinking about all the objects, symbols, and motifs that are relevant for us and our stories.