Women: Memory of Repression in Argentina
Women: Memory of Repression in Argentina
curatorial environment by Agricola de Cologne & Raquel Partnoy
The project is referring to the thirty thousands of persons who disappeared during the military dictatorships of the 20th century in Argentina, a war of the military against the own population, a genocide, which is also called "Argentine holocaust".
These disappeared were mainly members of a family like sons and fathers/husbands,
intellectuals and different minded, but many of them also Jews.
Only the resistance of courageous women, the mothers, better known as "Mother of Plaza de Mayo" against the military regime changed the country profoundly by organising demonstrations in order to get the answers what happened to their sons and husbands.
Raquel Partnoy, herself one of the mothers who lost a son and whose daughter was persecuted and imprisoned, is collaborating as a co-curator.
The project contains a number of authentic testimonies, a portrait of the Jewish family Partnoy who emigrated in the beginning of the 20th century from Europe to Argentina, a documentary which gives an idea how family structure were systematically destroyed while the military were ruling, further a number of young Argentine female New Media artists who deal with this traumatic memory manifested in their net based art works, curated by Agricola de Cologne, by name Irene Coremberg, Marina Zerbarini, Anahi Caceres and her Arte UNa network and Andamio Contiguo, an artists collaborative.
During many decades only the demonstrations of the mothers kept vivid the memory of the disappeared, and most of the cases could not be cleared up until these days and remained a national trauma.
Only these days and under more democratic conditions, there is slowly starting a general movement to reflect the period of the military juntas.
The project stands in the context of these recent developments in Argentina.
The genocide stands in one line with the genocide on the Jews in Nazi Germany, on the different minded in Stalinist Russia, the moslems in former Yugoslavia,
the intellectuals in Cambodia and many more.
If the project would like to give one message, than this:
What happened in Argentina must not happen again, not in this country nor at any other place on the globe.
The project is created, edited and produced by Agricola de Cologne, but the collaborative and networking aspect is of essential relevance.