Voces para transformar a Colombia: a clever exhibition in the midst of transition

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

María Juliana Angarita is a Ph.D. student in Museology, Heritage and Interpretation at the Université du Québec à Montréal. She holds a M. Arts. in Museology (Université du Québec à Montréal) and a B.A. in International Relations (Universidad del Rosario, Bogotá). Her research, funded by the Fonds de Recherche du Québec-Société et culture, explores contemporary struggles for the memory of Colombia’s internal armed conflict and the emerging musealization of violence in the country. Her research interests include the geopolitics of museology, the heritagization of violence, memorial museums and the curation of difficult histories.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 The Museum’s current administration has recently decided to change the institution’s name to Museo de Memoria de Colombia. This denomination was in fact the Museum’s first name. In 2018, the institution was re-named Museo de Memoria Histórica de Colombia at the request of the Ministry of Culture of the previous government. In this review, I will refer to the Museum’s official name at the time of the exhibition’s installation in Bogotá.

2 This review is based on more than 15 hours of visits to the exhibition and the author’s participation in different events that were part of its programming. In addition to documenting the experience, the author had the opportunity to exchange impressions with the Museum’s curatorial team and to observe how various types of audiences interacted with the exhibition facilities. Visiting the exhibition was part of the author’s fieldwork and master’s research on the MMHC.

3 The CNMH builds on the work carried out by the Grupo de Memoria Histórica, a group of renowned academics assigned to present a public report on ‘the reasons for the emergence and evolution of illegal armed groups in Colombia’ established under the Justice and Peace Law of 2005, which defined the legal framework for the demobilization of the paramilitary grouping Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC). Over the years, the CNMH has published more than 70 case-based reports on the different dynamics and episodes of the Colombian conflict.

4 http://museodememoria.gov.co/