Location, materiality, participation: Memorial design for victims of violence in Latin America

Abstract

Places of traumatic memories provide particular design challenges. Conflict landscapes are complex terrains that challenge ideas about identity, sense of place and commemoration and feelings of belonging. How can memorials provide opportunities for the development of social practices, meaningful materiality, individual experience and collective memory? Developing memorial languages and symbolic framings can support the construction of narratives and spaces in which individuals and groups can grapple with traumatic pasts. Each tragedy leaves its own unique set of wounds and scars, and memoryscapes can bring meaning and form to them. This article explores how memorial languages shape responses to traumas caused by conflict and violence in Latin America. In order to address this question, we examine two cases_the Center for Memory, Peace and Reconciliation in Bogotá, Colombia, and the Memorial to Victims of Violence, in Mexico City, Mexico.