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Abstract
This article addresses a controversial debate raised by an asado-party, which was celebrated by the end of 2012 at the former Navy Mechanics School (ESMA), the main clandestine detention centre where almost 5,000 people were held captive and tortured during Argentina’s last dictatorship (1976-1983). In 2004, the former school was transformed into a “space of memory”. Drawing upon the asado episode, I consider which kind of practices of re-occupation former landscapes of death may allow.
I first provide an overview of the interventions that took place at ESMA within the Kirchnerist period (2003-2015). Second, I bring into play some cultural productions of the new generations, as well as performances and philosophical ruminations regarding the asado as a main theme in the local culture. Finally, I put these materials in the larger context of memory politics to explore how food-reunions – and expanded tables might work as a public pathway for a collective digestion of grief. The question that is ultimately at stake is how to kindle alternative hospitalities and dialogues in landscapes marked by loss. Might the spectrum of activities that took place at the former ESMA during the Kirchnerist years suggest a new conviviality for the aftermath of violence?
Keywords:
Acknowledgments
I would like to record my gratitude to the British Academy for the International Partnership and Mobility (IPM) Scheme award, which funded the programme “Commemoration, New Audiences and Spaces of Memory in Latin America’s Southern Cone: Trans-cultural Dialogues in the Wake of Loss”, which allowed me to expand the research on audiences and spaces of memory at a transnational level. I would also like to thank Jens Andermann for organising the International Symposium ‘Architectures of Affect’ (Zurich, 2013), which was the beginning of exciting exchanges around places, politics and cultures of mourning in Latin America.
Notes
1. This killing machine developed by military personnel is now known as the vuelos de la muerte (death flights). The procedure was first officially revealed by the former Captain Adolfo Sicilingo and later reported by the journalist Horacio Verbitsky in his book El vuelo (Planeta 1995).
2. In fact, La Cámpora was founded in 2003 by Máximo Kirchner, Néstor and Cristina Fernández’s son, but gained major visibility after Kirchner’s death in 2008. The group used as one of its main symbols the figure of Nestornauta, a stylised image of the protagonist of El Eternatuta (1957–59), the classic comic by Oesterheld and Solano López, with his face replaced by that of Néstor Kirchner.
3. See ‘Dos organismos de DD.HH. y la oposición piden la renuncia de Alak por el asado y brindis en la ESMA’, Clarín, 3 January 2013, http://www.clarin.com/politica/Piden-renuncia-Alak-brindis-ESMA_0_840516109.html [accessed December 31, 2014].
4. After decades of impunity, in 2006 the trials against humanity were re-opened in Argentina. The one which focuses on the former ESMA has been the largest in terms of the number of accused ever recorded. See ‘Un juicio que llega a la etapa final’, Página 12, 27 December 2014, http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/1-262784-2014-12-27.html.
5. A new asado was reported to be taking place at ESMA on 3 September 2013. See http://www.infobae.com/2013/09/03/1506140-denuncian-otra-organizacion-un-asado-la-ex-esma.
6. See Guillermo dos Santos Coelho, ‘Kirchner inauguró el Mueso en la ESMA y pidió perdón en nombre del Estado’, Clarín, 24 March 2004, http://edant.clarin.com/diario/2004/03/24/um/m-730116.htm [accessed 10 August 2013].
7. The consideration of the proposals was entrusted to the Instituto Nacional de la Memoria, http://www.institutomemoria.org.ar/exccd/esma.html [accessed 2 August 2013].
8. Former inmates and survivors contended that the entire premises of the former camp should be preserved as the untouched testimony of state terrorism. The proposal from the Asociación Ex-Detenidos Desaparecidos (Association of Former Detainee-Disappeared) can be found here: http://www.exdesaparecidos.org.ar/propuestaesmaaedd.htm [accessed 2 August 2013].
9. The light-installation set in the Casino met with criticism. See http://www.lapoliticaonline.com/noticias/val/92643-6/el-kirchnerismo-quiere-un-%E2%80%9Cshow-de-luces-en-la-esma-y-se-enfrenta-con-los-ex-detenidos.html.
10. Upon visiting the Museum of Memory in December 2015, the Italian specialist on trauma Patrizia Violi also highlighted the ‘very good balance among good conservation, information, involvement on the side of the visitors, but without the usual attempt of pretending to make them feel and experience what the victims did, which I personally dislike’ (personal communication).
11. In December 2015, the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo announced the recovery of grandson number 119, Mario Bravo in Las Rosas, a small town in Santa Fe. Mario Bravo was 38 years old at the time, having been separated from his mother immediately after she gave birth. http://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias/2015/12/151201_argentina_nieto_119_mario_bravo_sara_irm.
12. See ‘Cuando la memoria convoca multitudes’, Página 12, 27 December 2014, http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/1-262756-2014-12-27.html.
13. The potatoes’ initiative ‘Cosechar-Multiplicar’ (‘Harvest-Multiply’) was an artistic project conducted by Marina Etchegoyen between October 2009 and February 2010 at the Madres cultural centre ECUNHI. See http://www.marinaetchegoyhen.blogspot.com/ [accessed 11 December 2013].
14. It was the 25th of September 2003 during Kirchner’s first speech at the United Nations.
15. Néstor Kirchner held the presidency from December 2003 to December 2007, when his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, replaced him up until 10 December 2015.
16. I am referring, for instance, to the exhibition Familias Q’Heridas [Beloved-Wounded Families] (2011), which gathers paintwork produced by Jorgelina Molina Planas, Ana Adjiman, María Guiffra and Victoria Grigera, all daughters of the disappeared; Huachos [Orphans] (2011), the art exhibition produced by an artistic branch of H.I.J.O.S., which defined themselves as ‘orphans scientifically produced by state genocide acts’; and also Filiación [Filiations] (2013), Lucila Quieto’s photographic collection recently released at the former ESMA.
17. I have developed this argument in my analysis of Lola Arias’s performance Mi vida después (see Sosa Citation2012: 221–33). Apart from Bruzzone and Perez’s work, I am also thinking of Cómo enterrar a un padre desaparecido (Citation2012), a fictional memoir written by Sebastian Hacher, which shows an interesting hybridization between the figure of a daughter who seeks to deface her missing father and a ‘non-affected’ author who adopts her voice. The TV series 23 Pares, directed by Albertina Carri and Marta Dillon, has also proposed an alternative form of queering the bloodline family of victims.
18. The original is in French.
19. My translation.
20. In the original: ‘Estoy eternamente agradecido porque se me haya ocurrido hacer esa foto. Finalmente, la puesta en escena se hace documental. Esa imagen, está documentando un modo de vivir, una cultura, una época… ¿Para eso dicen que sirve el arte, no?’ See http://www.infoeducasares.com.ar/?p=118.
22. See Le Monde Diplomatique, http://www.eldiplo.org/agenda/marcos-lopez-asado-en-el-larreta/.
23. In the orginal: ‘Un asado en un palacio renacentista español’. See Clarín, November 16th, 2014, http://www.clarin.com/ciudades/noche_de_los_museos-asado-Marcos_Lopez_0_1249675042.html.
24. In the original: ‘Mi obra es la exageración como una textura del subdesarrollo de la copia del juego de original y copia, reflexionar sobre lo verdadero-falso en este espacio que tiene algo de escenográfico en sí mismo’. See Clarin: http://www.clarin.com/ciudades/noche_de_los_museos-asado-Marcos_Lopez_0_1249675042.html.
25. See Magdalena de Santo, ‘De carne somos’, Página 12, 31 October 2014, http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/soy/1-3686-2014-10-31.html.
26. In the original: ‘Todo bicho que camina va a parar al asador’, pues ‘cuando la hambre se siente, el hombre le clava el diente a todo lo que se mueve’. See de Santo, ‘De carne somos’, Página 12, 31 October 2014, http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/soy/1-3686-2014-10-31.html.
27. In the original: ‘La parrilla signa la fraternidad de los varones que se devoran al otro animal, pero que también se devoran entre ellos, compitiendo para ver “quién la tiene más larga”’. See de Santo, ‘De carne somos’, Página 12, 31 October 2014, http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/soy/1-3686-2014-10-31.html.
28. I owe the inclusion of the vegan/feminist perspective entirely to Jens Andermann’s thoughtful critique. I have incorporated some of his ideas in this passage. His early reading of this piece provided me with sophisticated nuances that enabled me to strengthen the main argument.
29. In the original: ‘testimonio material del genocidio’ (my translation). I am referring to the project of the Asociación de Ex-Detenidos Desaparecidos (AEDD).
30. This, for instance, is the position of the Argentine philosopher Alejandro Kaufman, which Andermann defines as a ‘radical testimonialism’ and finally accounts for the ‘irrecoverability’ of ESMA (see Andermann Citation2012).
31. The quote belongs to an interview I conducted with Hebe de Bonafini on 19 April 2009 at the Madres’ House.
32. I am considering here a paper that the British scholar Nicholas Ridout presented at Chelsea Theatre on 3 November 2009 during the Sacred Festival. The paper is entitled ‘Performing the Real: Economics and Aesthetics’ (unpublished). I am grateful to Ridout for giving me the permission to quote from his notes.
33. See ‘Cuando la memoria convoca multitudes’, Página 12, 27 December 2014.
34. The project ‘Tocame el Rock’, led by the Argentine artist Roberto Jacoby, includes a collection of songs composed by different musicians, featuring a video clip shot at the former ESMA.
35. Within his first week of administration, President Macri introduced a team of ministers who were trained originally in the corporate world. http://www.telam.com.ar/notas/201512/129347-macri-gabinete-el gabinete de los CEO (Télam).