Anonymous Auras: A Place For Debate On The Memories Of Violence In Colombia

VANEGAS CARRASCO, CAROLINA

Qingdao

Congreso; International Research Conference of the Institute for Public Art; 2020

Shanghai University & Institute for Public Art (IPA)

Under the title Auras Anónimas (Anonymous auras), Colombian artist Beatriz González made an intervention in 2009 in the funeral galleries (columbariums) of the Central Cemetery of Bogotá with which she sought to prevent its demolition. The artist represents a sector that considers that the buildings, which ceased to have funerary use since 2002, must be preserved for their historical importance since they lodged hundreds of dead without identifying in the revolt that occurred on April 9, 1948 as consequence of the murder of the liberal leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. The involuntary permanence of this work that was intended to last only for two years, made it a witness and participant in the memory processes that accompanied the peace dialogues between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas (2012-2016). Anonymous auras has ?sustained? for a decade the columbariums as a place of national memory, however the processes of urbanization of the area and the lack of maintenance of the work today call into question its preservation.