The Murals of El Salvador: Reconstruction, Historical Memory and Whitewashing

Abstract

Walls define El Salvador. Littered with advertisements, political propaganda, murals and graffiti, the nation's walls reveal tensions, propagate values and narrate everyday life. In a country still negotiating a brutal civil war (1980–1992), El Salvador's search for collective identity actively defines its socio-political life and, consequently, public walls.Despite this, Salvadoran mural painting has never been internationally studied, celebrated or defined. It has existed for decades, influenced by Mexico's mural legacy, while deeply reflecting El Salvador's cultural and political identities. Since the 1990s, painted symbols, themes and motifs specific to Salvadoran history have become active material markers in the struggle for nationhood. Mural painting has become a leftist tool to reclaim local identities, subvert contemporary struggles and exert political power. Pieced together, El Salvador's murals reveal attempts to construct a shared cultural identity as it actively defines, interprets and debates the nation's historical memory. This article provides an introduction to postwar mural painting in El Salvador with particular focus on its relationship to the philosophy of historical memory and the politics of whitewashing. It concludes with a discussion of contemporary Salvadoran mural projects.