Collective memory in the urban landscape: which memorials for a traumatic past?

Ref.: 274
Key theme: 03 Visual integrity of historic urban landscapes
Date of reception: 08/11/2008

AUTHORS (*Main author)

VIOLI, Patrizia * (Italy) - University of Bologna

ABSTRACT

Urban landscape is not only constituted by tangible artefacts, buildings, houses or remains from the past, but is also intertwined with intangible `entities', such as the cultural values and human practices associated with material artefacts and the spaces they occupy. Among the most important of these intangible entities is collective memory of the past, an essential part of cultural identity of a given society, since the very idea of state, nation, and history is rooted in memory.
However, collective memory might well be a controversial matter, when recollection of the past is not shared by the whole community, and very different reconstructions of the past are still in conflict with one another. This is often the case in post conflict societies, where traumatic events remain over time in collective memory as cutting edges of a non resolved peaceful reconciliation. This is especially so in the contemporary world, where new forms of conflicts have arisen, that exhibit quite different features from traditional wars among national states. More and more often conflicts occur within the same national or state entity, as a result of ethnic, religious or political contrasts (for example in the Balkans, Ruanda, Argentina, Chile, Cambodia, and so on).
Post conflict societies emerging from such collective trauma need to heal, deal with their sense of mourning and to confront and reconcile their diverse collective memories, which are often controversial and contrasting. Memories and their elaboration become a central component of post-conflict cultural identity, and this opens up an important question also for the redefinition of urban landscape. Should the altered landscape be kept as it is, as a living witness of the tragedy and a memento for the future? Or it should be rebuilt as it was, in the hope that an exact reconstruction can facilitate the memory of the previous integrity? Different options have been adopted in different situations, and they all question the relationship between memory and cultural identity.
In this framework the construction of memorials or monuments are an essential part of the strategy through which a post-conflict culture deals with its traumatic past and re-thinks the integrity of traumatized landscapes.
In my paper I will consider two quite different memorials of this kind: Villa Grimaldi in Santiago, Chile, and Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, analysing their different semiotic meanings and the way they are socially and collective constructed. Using a semiotic methodology, my analysis will take into consideration not only the spatial organisation of these places, but also the complex systems of practices that have arisen around the monuments themselves, together with the emotional impact that is an essential part of their overall signification potential.

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