Casa de la Memoria Museum was created in 2006 as an initiative of the Municipal Unit for Victim Attention and Reparation of Medellin, Colombia, in order to contribute to the comprehension and overcoming of the armed conflict and the diverse kinds of violence of Medellin, Antioquia and Colombia from different scenarios of open, reflexive and plural dialogue aimed at understanding and overcoming the armed conflict. We are a space at the heart of the city where memories of the armed conflict have a physical and symbolic place, from which we pretend to act for the promotion of a cultural transformation in Colombia. Our memories are alive. We remember in order to contribute to the prevention of future violence. This space is a house for gathering and dialogue to understand what had happened and still happen in our society, to be hopeful again and create other possible futures without violence.
HOW DO WE DO IT?
- Casa de la Memoria Museum works from different lines and projects to construct memories, sensitize all citizens against the impact of violence, to ensure that there are an understanding and a guarantee of non-repetition.
- We have a Permanent Exhibition Room, where visitors can find the Medellin interactive exhibition: Medellin, memories of violence and resistance, which sets the scene of violence in the city, told through different voices.
- In addition, we have the Memory Enclosure, a space in which the victims’ families pay tribute to their lost relatives due to the armed conflict.
- Furthermore, we have three exhibition rooms where temporary samples, laboratories, and workshops are carried out.
PROJECTS. CONTENT CONSTRUCTION AND CIRCULATION OF MEMORIES:
This process involves a participatory construction of memories, their filing, and circulation, to contribute to the guarantees of non-repetition, symbolic reparation and reconciliation. To this end, the Museum has researchers and the Resource Center for Activation of Memory (CRAM, for its Spanish abbreviation), whose duties are:
- Research for participatory construction of memories.
- Elaboration of museological scripts and construction of contents for museographic processes.
- Knowledge Management
- Content circulation through the Documentation Center and the Human Rights Archive.
- Leading and participating in academic and city events.
SOCIAL BOND AND PARTNERSHIPS:
Our goal is to generate citizen participation processes, through social and cultural spaces around memories and their role in peacebuilding, from the plurality and recognition of diverse voices. To that end, we establish links between local, national and international actors and develop partnerships and activate networks, which strengthen the Museum’s processes.
VISIBILITY AND TRANSFER OF MEMORIES:
This process aims at generating pedagogical methodologies and museographic experiences to enable an approach and understanding of the conflict from the enunciation and symbolic elaboration of memories, intersubjective dialogues, and recognition of the other and his/her otherness, awareness of the pain and needs of others; interpellating and mobilizing the subject’s negotiations and strengthening communities towards peacebuilding.
