Patricio Guzmán, memory or life

Nancy BerthierProfessor at the Sorbonne University (Chair of Visual Arts of the Hispanic World) and director of Casa Velázquez Cover image: Patricio Guzmán during the shooting of The Cordillera of Dreams (2019). Promotional image. It is not an easy task to talk about Patricio Guzmán in just a few words; nor would it be in …

The bright future of memory

Olivier WievirkovaHistorian, Faculty member at the École normale supérieure de Cachan Cover image: Japanese Embassy in Seoul and watched from behind a bronze statue of comfort women. Sakaori, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. The memory of the Second World War clearly remains very much alive. To give just one example, the conflict triggered in …

Seeing time, fragment

Georges Didi-HubermanPhilosopher and art historian, lecturer at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) Cover image: Butterflies and beetles in the collections of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Oxford, England. Picture by allispossible.org.uk, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons How do we see time? How does time become sensitive? These are …

Filming the archaeology of the Shoah: shared perspectives from Auschwitz and Sobibor 

A conversation between Arnaud Sauli and Ania Szczepanska  Arnaud Sauli made the documentary film Sheol in 2022, dedicated to the material traces of the Sobibor extermination camp. By following the work of archaeologists and architects of the museum under construction, the film shows the tensions at the heart of memorial work on the Shoah. His …

Editorial #7

By Jordi Guixé, Director of the European Observatory on Memories Introducing our new issue of Observing Memories proves to be quite a challenge against the backdrop of bombs falling near our homelands, the loss of lives among civilians of all ages and the repeated violation of human rights, starting with the fundamental right to life. …