Thoughts upon the Representation of Traumatic Memory at the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos (MMDH, Museum of Memory and Human Rights), Santiago de Chile, Chile

Abstract

This report states an analysis on the representation of the traumatic memory, a consequence of a dictatorial and violent past, at the center of the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos (MMDH, the Memory and Human Rights Museum), Santiago de Chile, Chile. This institution aims to both establish a dialogue between the past and the present in order to reconstruct the social fabric that was fragmented with the military dictatorship led by Augusto Pinochet Ugarte (1973-1990), as well as to strengthen democratic practices and generate a trans-generational exchange, under the motto Never Again. To fullfill these objectives, this museum employs two representational strategies, which are examined in this paper. On the one hand, the mmdh employs archive documentation, a key source that serves as evidence to configure a tale aiming toward objectivity and that, I believe, risks constructing a closed narrative, without the fractures and interstices that allow questioning. On the other hand, and less strongly, the piece of art, as a prop for an open tale, that from the symbolic sphere, I consider, not only stimulates multiple reading and interpretations but it is set so as to be deconstructed and reconstructed from the present time, stimulating critical thinking in the visitors.