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The Stuff Memories Are Made Of: Material Culture of Argentina's Dirty War

It’s an unusually warm winter day in Buenos Aires and I am

sitting in the small, sun-drenched office of sociologist Maria

Mendizabal, known to her colleagues as Maru. In her lap she holds a

book—heavy and old, with worn pages and an inscription written in

hardly legible cursive. “These were very important texts for us.” She

reads the inscription silently, and a huge smile crosses her face.

“He was an anarchist you know. A very important man.”

Maru’s office is not at a university. Rather, we are gathered in

a space known as El Olimpo—a former torture and detention center used

during Argentina’s “Dirty War,” a period of military dictatorship

between 1976-1983 that turned state against people. Centers such as

this one were used to detain kidnapped individuals who were deemed

“subversive” by the government and served as a place of torture and

ultimately death for a majority of the 30.000 individuals who were

“disappeared” by the junta. Although Olimpo was one of the largest of

such centers it was certainly not the only one, with over 600

functioning Clandestine Centers of Detention, Torture, and

Extermination (CCDTyEs) across Argentina.1 It also happens to be in the

1 "Argentine CCDTyEs." The Legacy Projects. Web. 1 Aug 2012. <http://www.thelegacyproject.com/acccdtye.html>

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heart of the middle class neighborhood of Floresta in southern Buenos

Aires, the largest city in the country.

We are joined by Isabel Cerruti, the Site Director of Olimpo—and

also one of its former prisoners. Isabel was one of the “lucky ones,”

and was released from the center only a year after her capture in

1979. Yet she finds herself back at this place, unable to shake its

specters and her obligation to those who did not make it out. “They

called me and asked me to help take back the space from the police”

she tells me, and rolls her eyes. “Of course I had to.” That was back

in 2001, when a crisis in Argentina’s economy and presidency led to an

outpour of what Cerruti calls “public movements.” Argentines began to

ask for more thing than they were allowed before, including the

physical space of the CCDTyEs, many of which closed nearly 30 years

before and had been either torn down or re-appropriated as other

government buildings. The community of Floresta insisted, as did many

others around Argentina, that this building was more than just a

collection of walls but rather that the space itself held some sort of

historic, political, and cultural value that was not being addressed

in its current use housing vehicles for the Buenos Aires police. And

so the assemblies began and the ideas poured forth on how to reclaim

this space for memory.

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I can hear hushed giggling as a secondary school group passes

underneath the office window. Thanks to the efforts of Maru, Isabel,

and dozens other like them, El Olimpo has taken on a new form and new

meaning. The main building now houses classes on cooking and arts and

crafts, support for high school drop-outs who want to finish their

degree, and offers legal assistance to the elderly. Just upstairs,

however, one can see clearly that the group has not forgotten its

heritage. In what feels remotely like someone’s living room, pictures

of former detainees hang on the wall and various side tables are

covered in what Maru calls “Memory Folders”—scrapbooks documenting the

lives of prisoners before their time on Olimpo.

The site walks a fine line between past and present, remembrance

and progress. In this sense it is unique among many others in Buenos

Aires which chose to remain frozen in time as museums and memorials to

the way things were. For example, the ESMA (the largest and best-

funded CCDTyE in Buenos Aires) made a conscious decision to leave

their rooms bare, as they were at the end of 1983, and to not attempt

to reconstruct anything as it may have been during its time as a

detention center. Although El Olimpo did the same, it also embraces a

dynamic pedagogy, welcoming input and memories from the surrounding

community. ESMA, on the other hand, employs tour guides who focus the

experience through a memorized script, one that it seems has not been

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changed since national law declared it a “Space for Memory and for the

Promotion and Defense of Human Rights” in 2004.

The Politics of Memory and Material

The book Maru is clutching is part of a larger collection owned

by the site known as “The Forbidden Library.” The space is filled wall

to wall with old magazines, pamphlets, encyclopedias, and books, all

of which were banned during the dictatorship, and all of which are

donations from the surrounding community. “It was important to them

that these things be here” Maru tells me. Both the former prisoners

from the site and the barrio of Floresta have managed to stay very

involved with El Olimpo’s evolution as a space of memory. In fact, the

“public movements” Isabel speaks of led to the reclamation of dozens

of former torture sites around Argentina, mostly in the early to mid-

2000s. These sites are given national protection as “historical

sites,” but are each allowed to engage with the memory of the former

CCDTyE as they see fit.2 It is here that we understand the difference

in approach between the dogma of ESMA and the fluid reconstruction of

Olimpo.

Yet despite the differences in tactics, there is one thing that

motivates each of these sites: the desire to preserve memory, what

Guido Indij calls “a necessary exercise for rescuing shared history

2 ibid

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and distinguishing it from the individual daily life.”3 However, this

is not memory in the sense of recorded facts, dates, and figures. The

memory of Argentina’s Dirty War is much more complicated to parse

together because of one of the major military tactics of the time—

secrecy. There was never any physical war and people were rarely

formally arrested by police, most often they were simply disappeared.

One day they were there, the next their corporal form was missing,

even as daily life continued around them. Sons and daughter, husbands

and wives, parents and pregnant women all suddenly vanished without

leaving a shred of evidence as to their whereabouts. It was only after

the collapse of the dictatorship (and in some cases many years after)

that survivors began to come forward and speak about their memories of

the places they were held and tortured. Although often blindfolded for

the duration of their stay, former prisoners can remember things like

the location of staircases and walls, the names of fellow prisoners,

and the noises of the streets below. It is from these memories that

survivors began to piece together their shared history and rediscover

the spaces that held them.

Of course, with all memory (personal or collective) comes some

room for contestation, and to build a history out of memory proves to

be an exhausting experience in and of itself. Debates rage around

3 Brodsky, Marcelo. Memory Under Construction. La Marca, 2008. 288. Print. Pg 236

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whether it is possible to insure accuracy with this process, even as

other debates transpire about whether or not “accuracy” is actually

important to this type of traumatic personal memory. Why is it so

important to know what happened in these centers thirty years ago?

Perhaps it is because as Indij tells us, “these are sites of

“conscience,” given the impossibility of the representation of death

in the figure of a disappeared person…we have here the opportunity to

colonize a territory of conscious.”4 In these sites we have a chance to

tell stories that teach lessons about our governments—how they were,

what they could be, and what they should never be again, Nunca Mas. The

memory can be something we learn from, a constructing force of modern

politics. “Proposal:” Nicolás Casillo offers us, “memory should be

that which, in Argentina today, impedes the naturalization of its

history… does not acquire its final form as history, but as awareness

of a great impediment for the community.”5 The idea is to make history

not just an isolated, past occurrence, but to understand how that past

affects the present. As a hortative force then, the memory of the

survivors gains even more importance as a political force used for

educating a citizenry. The battle for what memory is shown in these

4 Brodsky 2365 Brodsky 265

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sites becomes a heated one. Exactly who owns the memory, and who gets

to decide how history is retold?

What is presented at these sites is what Marita Sturken calls

“cultural memory,” one which “both defines a culture and is the means

by which its divisions and conflicting agendas are revealed.”6 Taking

into account the experiences of the individuals, the sites attempt to

weave together a history based on “different stories [which] vie for a

place in history.”7 What we know about the sites and the way they were

when they operated as detention centers comes almost exclusively from

the former prisoners themselves. Yet the circumstances under which the

individuals existed in this space (blindfolded and often near

exhaustion) rightfully raises questions about the faithfulness of the

recollections to actual events. However many of the sites, Olimpo

included, chose to emphasize not the promotion of “accurate” reports,

but merely intend to be a space where all memories can be shared. After

all, as Lila Pastoriza tells us “all memory is a construction of

memory: what is remembered, what is forgotten, and what meanings are

given to recollections is not something implicit in the course of

events, but rather obeys a selection with ethical and political

implications.”8 6 Sturken, Marita. Tangled Memories. Los Angeles: University of California Press, Ltd, 1997. Print. Pg 17 Strurken 18 Brodsky 251

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Pastoriza also alludes to one of the major reasons societies

continue to be fixated on memory—the ideas of the past influence the

actions of the present. Specifically though, Argentina’s situation is

unique because it has the opportunity to curate the ideas of the past

through such spaces as the CCDTyEs. Directors of these sites have the

opportunity to create an experience for visitors through what Marcelo

Brodsky considers the “tools of storytelling,” saying that the spaces

should “[make] use of all possible forms…a menu of options for drawing

personal conclusions.”9 Indeed, the former CCDTyEs of Argentina have

made a conscious effort to continually innovate human interaction with

memory, to honor the individuality of the prisoner and to build

intimate connections between them and the visitors. Many “tools” are

used to tell the stories of the disappeared, from their photos to

personal belongings to family scrapbooks.

All the while Maru assures me that El Olimpo does not exist to

serve some political agenda, that it was born out of a people’s

movement and that it exists to serve the community, not an ideology.

And as a product of the community, the site has managed to amass quite

a few donated artifacts from the time of the dictatorship. Beside the

Forbidden Library, the building also houses a “plastificadora,” the

huge metal laminating machine used to falsify government documents

9 Brodsky 237

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under the junta’s rule, as well as containing the Memory Folders. How

curious I found it to adorn a former torture site in this fashion. Why

keep all this stuff around? How do these objects function differently

than plaques in a perhaps more traditional museum? How do these things

speak differently to an audience than a written or verbalized

pedagogy?

The objects housed at Olimpo are not unique to how Argentina

remembers the Dirty War. Besides the converted CCDTyEs, memorials and

museums have popped up all over the country, each paying respect to

the disappeared in a different way. One group that has taken a strong

foothold in the memory movement are Argentina’s artisans. From

paintings to photographs to sculptures, artists are finding new ways

to evoke meaning from this time period. One such multi-media

experience is the Parque de la Memoria, located at a much-coveted

outdoor green space near the River Plata. The park is a work in

progress, featuring ten installations constructed since its opening on

2007. Although most of the artists are Argentine, the works

commissioned for the park were chosen through an open competition,

with all of the winners having backgrounds in human rights work. The

result is a mixed collection of ideas and recollections of the Dirty

War.

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Other artists are working independently to engage with public

memory. One such individual is Marga Steinwasser whose piece Química de

la Memoria reconstructs memory not through the eyes of the artists

alone, but by engaging the broader community. Marga initially

established a series of workshops by the same name in Buenos Aires,

Rosario, and Montevideo that asked members of the local communities to

bring in an object that to them held some connection to the time

period of 1976-1983. The donor was allowed to speak about the object

and why they chose it, then had the option to leave the object at the

meeting space for future workshops. At the end of the series, the

objects that were donated became part of the larger art instillation

shown at the Museum of Memory, each object with a small tag explaining

its presence in the exhibit.

The Museum of Memory takes a more traditional approach to

teaching history through memory. Located about four hours outside of

Buenos Aires in the city of Rosario, the site is not a former CCDTyE

but rather a large, open building which takes a multi-media approach

to recounting the events of 1976-1983. Different rooms house different

artist’s exhibits throughout the building , including videos, photos,

books and art exhibits mixing media documentation with created pieces.

Each of these sites uses objects to evoke an understanding and a

connection with Argentina’s tragic past. The spaces are different but

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the sentiment is the same- to preserve the memories of a generation

disrupted by military violence.

Objects of Memory

The events of 1976-1983 at time seem unreal, impossible in such a

highly educated city as Buenos Aires. To understand what it means to

disappear 30,000 people, to understand the torture those individuals

endured, and to understand that their torturers until very recently

walked free among them was surely inconceivability for many

Argentines. It is an issue which demands a cautious and intentional

approach—“you have to be ready to receive the memory”10 Jeslin tells us.

In many ways, objects are the things that pull these stories out of

the realm of fiction into reality, making the unimaginable tangible.

These sites are moving away from “’ritualized recollection’ to more

active forms such as the reconstruction of life stories… with the

intent to ‘provide a face’ to the victims and create a space for the

emotional and aesthetic approach to the inconceivable.”11 These objects

create a space for visitors to approach the memory, and for the memory

to seem more real simply through the “proof” of objects the

disappeared left behind.

10 Elizabeth, Jelin. Class Lecture11 Brodsky 253

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Objects, then, also assuage the tendency to see memory as

something volatile and changing, a product of the imagination of the

individual. They need not defend a position; they do so simply by

existing. After all, Pastoriza tells us “it is the connection between

what the meaning the past had for its actors and what it has for the

challenges of the present is what allows a memory to be a faithful

memory.”12 One solid way to build this understanding is through

familiar objects, whose use seems to transcend eras.

History has long struggled to be understood in the modern day as

a reality and not as a fiction, to reach an understanding with an

audience with no first-hand connections to the events. Fortunately for

these sites, memory is highly transferable and human experience

creates an excellent common ground for understanding to begin. “By

contrast with history,” Pastoriza affirms, “memory being in one’s own

lived experience and by giving meaning to it one makes it

transmittable, ‘passable’ to others.”13 Within each of these sites-

Parque de la Memoria, The Museum of Memory, El Olimpo, and the

traveling exhibit of Marga Steinwasser—memories of the individuals are

told through objects that give meaning to a past that is perhaps still

not fully understood.

12 Brodsky 25113Brodsky 251

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Thing Theory

It is no accident that all these spaces of memory are filled with so-

called “things.” Research on material culture gained popularity in the

west in the 1950s when a new era of prosperity brought about a new

fascination with accumulation. Yet in recent years the focus has

shifted from why we acquire certain things into what the meanings we

project onto those things. Bill Brown, an English professor at the

University of Chicago, writes extensively about object theory,

specifically on the more banal objects of life that find themselves

the center of great American literature. Brown draws a sharp

distinction between what he considers “objects” and “things”— an

object becomes a thing when it no longer fulfills its “purpose” to us

and we suddenly realize it as its own material, not just a tool. “You

could imagine things,” Brown tells us, “as what is excessive in

objects, as what exceeds their mere materialization as objects or

their mere utilization as objects…the magic by which objects become

values, fetishes, idols, and totems.”14

Magic indeed. The objects collected at these sites represent a

spectrum from the most banal, such as clothes or tea kettles, to the

most obscure, such as the plasticifidora. Yet each equally commands

our attention, demands to be given a second look. This “ability of

14 Brown, Bill. "Thing Theory." Critical Inquiry. 28.1 (2001): 5.

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objects to produce subjects,” is the way in which such things are

given new meaning in their new surroundings. It is not because of the

role they would serve in daily life, but stems from the fact that they

are no longer a part of such daily life. We speak then “not just the

history of things but the history in them... understood as the

crystallization of the anxieties and aspirations that linger there in

the material object.”15 Linger, of course, being a particularly apropos

word for how these objects fit the role of memory—physical preserved

yet dynamically imbued with “unofficial” (or “unofficially-official”)

meaning. A tea kettle becomes more than a way to heat water when it is

placed in Marga’s artwork, a book more than paper in the Forbidden

Library. These objects have become more than themselves—with this

excess of meaning they become things.

The things found in the sites of memory vary greatly depending on

the author and intended audience, but among them a few overarching

categories can be found. In an attempt to remember and represent the

disappeared, three main types of things are collected: objects of

identity, objects of comfort, and objects of burden. Each category

draws meaning differently not only for the audience but for those who

participate in the memory making, often family members or spouses of

15 Brown, Bill. "How to Do Things with Things (A Toy Story)."Critical Inquiry. 24.4(1998): 935. Print.

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the disappeared who donate objects to these sites. The objects, taken

out of their original context, are re-coded as “things,” and given new

meaning by their new role. The thing itself has not changed, but

rather our understanding of it does as we change “the subject-object

relation in particular temporal and spatial context.”16

Each category emphasizes and downplays different characteristics

in turn, taking its title not solely from how the object is received

by the audience but often from the meaning it is imbued with by the

others involved with the earlier memory making. For example the tea

kettle of Marga’s could be read first as an object of comfort, an

everyday object which brought familiarity and routine, but also serves

as an object of burden for the former prisoner who used it to make

mate while incarcerated, a reminder of their time in captivity and

torture, and so it turned over to Marga’s artwork as a form of

catharsis. Many objects can be read with such duality which in and of

itself evokes perhaps an even different, if uneasy, response from an

audience who came to find understanding but is instead confronted with

more complexities.

Regardless of category, all of these objects have been ripped

from the domestic sphere and forced into the public, still haunted by

the specters of their private intimacy. While serving as a common

16 Brown, Things with Things 7

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place of understanding, these objects offer a very personal avenue in

“the desire to make contact with the real.” 17 Yet the things

themselves are not so dogmatic—it is our understanding of them which

gives them meaning. We mistake tangibility for reality, drawing

conclusions we see as logistically sound, a reality. “We look through

objects,” Brown tells us, “because there are codes by which our

interpretive attention makes them meaningful, because there is a

discourse of objectivity that allows us to use them as facts.”18 As

facts, objects have a very powerful function in memory making.

Objects of Identity

The memory folders of El Olimpo total about fifteen, each a

different size and made of a different fabric. Inside, the life of a

different former-prisoner is highlighted, a mixed media project of

objects and old photos donated by families and loved ones (see figures 1-

3). Olimpo is not the only former CCDTyE that has such artifacts, but

rather a former center in Córdoba actually gave them the idea Maru

tells me. The books are a project of many people—items given by family

members, fabric donated by the center’s arts and crafts group, books

assembled by the sister of one of the disappeared who stays involved

17 ibid 218 ibid 4

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regularly with the center. Now the books sit on the tables in the

“living room” space that is open to the public.

The Folders serve a few different purposes. First, they are meant

to show how each of these individuals became involved in activism,

tracing their life from small children to their frequent involvement

with high school or college resistance groups. Second it provides the

families of the disappeared a space to reclaim something that was

taken from them: identity. The circumstances under which the victims

of the junta suffered left no room for closure, and with rarely a

formal arrest or recovered body most families were never given closure

as to their loved one’s fate. They disappeared not only a physical

body but a life, one often in its prime and still very much in motion.

It is the effort of these books to make sure the gone are not

forgotten, to fight secrecy with information.

Marcelo Brodsky, a photographer and artist, lost his brother to

the junta and in his book Buena Memoria tells of his journey to reclaim

a single photograph of his brother—a mug shot showing only the neck

up, in a plain white tank top taken at the ESMA. Commenting on this

story, fellow contributor Jose Pablo Feinmann explains “Marcelo wants

to give his brother back the face he had, to stubbornly trace those

features, with militant obstinacy, to win back his place in memory, a

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place of oblivion.”19 Photographs, like other objects, serve as

evidence to those lives lived and lost and help to “win back” the

ability to tell their stories. In such a case a piece of the person is

allowed to serve as the whole, a single photograph can become an

argument. “Photography supposedly does not tell,” Martin Campos

states, “it shows. If a picture says we exist, we must exist.”20

The Memory Museum utilizes photographs as well, but in a much

more unavoidable way. One of its rooms is filled with dozens of

enlarged national ID photos, each belonging to one of the dissapeared,

literally hanging at eye level (figures 4-5). Unlike the Memory Folders of

Olimpo they are simply inescapable—to maneuver through the room one

must duck and weave between them. These are a more blatant form of

identity reclamation, yet serve the same purpose as the Folders at

Olimpo—to keep the victims from becoming simply a number by giving

them names, hometowns, histories. “They were not numbers,” Feinmann

says, “they were the faces you see.” 21

Objects of Comfort

Alongside the objects that tell the political histories of the

prisoners, we also find objects that humanize them beyond more

official forms of identification. These are objects of comfort—19Brodsky, Marcelo, Martin Caparros, Jose Pablo Feinmann, and Juan Gelman. Buena Memoria. La Marca Editora, 2007. Print. 1820 Brodsky, et al 1621 Brodsky, et al 18

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everyday objects re-coded to show a more intimate understanding of the

lost lives. In this way the part comes to represent the whole, a

possession to represent a person.

Parque de la Memoria is a project still under construction, with

ten art pieces yet to be installed. One such piece is Pietá Argentine by

Netherlands-born Rini Hurkmans (figure 6). Hurkmans’ piece involves a

photography of a woman seated in a chair, behind her the rolling lawn

of the Parque itself and the River Plata. In her lap lies a pile of

clothes in the shape of a human body, hanging over either side of her

lap in the traditional religious pieta position. Other piles of

clothes in the shape of bodies lie in the grass at her feet. The

photograph will be blown up to life size, mounted between two pieces

of Plexiglas, and placed on the lawn in such a position that from the

right angle the horizon will line up to make it seem as though the

woman is actually present on the lawn.

The recoding of the clothes speaks less to the unalterable fact

of identity but to a certain reality that is understood through their

alteration—permanence that derives meaning from change. Like the

object that achieves meaning as a thing by losing its traditional

form, the clothes, now without an owner, are free to take on new

meaning. Here, they very literally become the missing body. The piece

derives much of its potency from the striking contrast of this new

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role. What were once often unnoticed objects of the everyday are

suddenly thrust to the forefront, demanding attention and

consideration. The meaning is derived not from the steadfastness of

the material objects, but through “that which becomes visible or

palpable only in (or as) its alteration.”22

Likewise, Marga’s Química de la Memoria alters the context of the

objects from their place in individual homes to a single, shared space

in the context of the instillation. With all of these objects suddenly

coexisting the viewer experiences a sort of “flea market of memories,”

with individual pieces coming together to create a unified effect

without sacrificing their individuality (figures 7-9). Química is unique in

that it also addresses the lack of knowledge about the dictatorship by

the Argentines living at the time. By inviting the larger community to

the workshops, the project also provides a space for those who either

did not know the violent extent of the dictatorship or otherwise chose

not to act a chance to reflect on their position alongside those whose

families were directly affected. These objects include things such as

baby boots from a mother who had just had her first child and a

notebook from a college student who was dedicated to her studies at

the time.

22 Brown, Things With Things pg 936

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Objects of comfort are those which were once part of normal life,

uninterrupted by a dictatorship. When taken out of the home they are

subject to a re-coding that allows them to become more than simply

objects, but artifacts that represent the wider Argentina community

under the regime. Just as the clothes of Pietá Argentine come to stand for

the individual, the artifacts of Química represent the intricacies of

the country at the time and act to reconstruct a broader cultural

memory.

Objects of Burden

Marga’s work is one that also walks the line between comfort and

burden, showing how objects of the former can become the later. Many

of the disappeared’s houses were left intact and the kidnapped left

behind an entire life’s worth of objects. Marga mentions that many of

these family members have been carrying around these objects for

decades and in giving them to the project no longer feel responsible

for the memories they hold—a single moment, suspended in time. By

placing them in such a public space, the memory is allowed to join

with other, similar memories to permeate society in a more centralized

way. Donating these items does not mean that the survivor is ready to

give up the memory of their loved one, but rather by concentrating the

memories the burden is shared by a larger group and is no longer a

personal one.

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This brings us back to the plasticizer of El Olimpo. Positioned

prominently against the far wall of the “living room,” it seems like a

curious edition to a room that is otherwise comprised of photos and

pillows. When I asked Maru about its origins she laughs and tells me

it’s an “interesting story.” The machine was donated by a man named

Alberto Barrett, grandson of a Rafael Barrett, a Spanish-born writer,

journalist, and essayist whose book of short stories she is still

clutching in her lap. Rafael immigrated to Paraguay in the early

twentieth century and soon became one of its most important figures.

He is also, as Maru said, an anarchist, valuing the control of the

individual above any other form of social order. In 1978, fifty years

after the book was published, Rafael’s grandson Alberto was kidnapped

by the military along with his daughter Soledad. Although Soledad’s

body was never recovered, Alberto managed to keep his life by earning

a prestige job within the center as a maker of false documents for the

military. The plasticizer once found a home in his own living room

where he was allowed to set up the operation, and a few years ago was

donated back to Olimpo.

Unlike other survivors who may keep around clothes or photos, the

plasticizer measures around eight cubic feet and surely was no small

contribution to Alberto’s home. When he finally brought the machine to

Olimpo, the site was thrilled to receive such a unique artifact.

Anderson 23

Alberto was glad to have it out of him home. For him the piece was a

solid reminder of his time in the detention center, and of the

continued absence of his daughter. As Brown tells us, “the question is

less about "what things are” for a given society than about what

claims on your attention and on your action are made on behalf of

things.”23 For Barrett, keeping the machine was once a form of

rebellion, a sentiment which finds a new audience in Olimpo. “It tells

the story of many people” Maru explains, “not only of his resistance

but of a lot of people.”

Objects of burden, once handed over to such memory projects, also

serve to pass on ideology. The Forbidden Library at Olimpo is a room

filled wall-to-wall with a variety of texts, each with its own history

(figure 10-11). During the time of the dictatorship, books, magazines and

pamphlets were all subject to strict censorship rules ranging from the

most obvious (topics of Communism, Marx, etc) to the more obscure (the

word “Cuba” and the color red). Many people simply didn’t know if any

of their books were considered contraband, and out of fear of police

raids destroyed anything questionable. Others buried books in their

backyards, and the most rebellious simply covered the book jacket with

a piece of construction paper so they could read the text publically

23 Brown, Thing Theory, pg 9

Anderson 24

without others knowing. Today the texts have been unearthed and

uncovered, and reside triumphantly in the library.

Among the most interesting pieces in the collection is an

encyclopedia-style set of the complete orations of Lenin. I am told

that the woman who brought it here said it was no longer of use to

her, that she had read them all and her hope was that now someone else

could. Books are a clear vehicle for ideology, and the object takes on

even more meaning as a hand-me-down. “Things are what we encounter,

ideas are what we project,” says Brown,” of course the experience of

an encounter depends, of course, on the projection of an idea.”24

Projected onto each of these books is a resistance and a hope, a sign

of what can be accomplished and a chance to pass on the same ideas to

a new generation.

Objects in Motion

El Olimpo is full of the stuff memories are made of. It was not the

first site of memory to structure its pedagogy around objects, but is

part of a much larger international movement to show, not just tell,

the stories of the past. Although personal memory is at times fickle,

it gains momentum and force when multiple memories come together

creating a shared history. Today the sites around Buenos Aires are

under the jurisdiction of the Institute Space for Memory, a governing

24 Ibid, qtd on pg 3

Anderson 25

body in charge of funding and supporting the sites. But “the funding

is never enough,” Maru tells me, and the space couldn’t exist without

its volunteers and donors. Perhaps this is what keeps the place

afloat. As long as Olimpo is willing to engage with memories, there

will always be memories to engage with. It is this sort of

participatory history building that continues the momentum of events

that happened thirty years ago, even as those first-hand survivors are

replaced with newer generations. The truth of what happened in 1976-

1983 lives on through the objects that hold memories of the

disappeared, the survivors, their families, and Argentine society.

Anderson 26

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Anderson 27

Figure 4

Figure 5

Anderson 28

Figure 6

Figure 7

Anderson 29

Figure 8

Figure 9

Anderson 30

Figure 10

Figure 11