Making visible: Operation Condor and art of memory in the Southern Cone

• In Event: Arts, History and Memory

Abstract

Operation Condor was a secret cooperation plan between the military regimes in South America in the 1970s meant to eliminate left wing opponents on the territory of the participating countries, based on the joint use of their resources which included a common database of information concerning those pursued. The collaboration was formalized at a meeting in Santiago de Chile in 1975 between the participating countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay (later joined by Peru and Ecuador). It is estimated that Operation Condor made 60.000 victims in the participating countries, but no exact data exists.

In this context, this presentation analyzes the role played by cultural memory and more specifically by art of memory in the construction of a more comprehensive memory of Operation Condor. The analysis focuses on specific art projects that were imagined in four of the participating countries to Operation Condor during their respective dictatorships: Argentina (1976-1983), Chile (1973-1989), Paraguay (1954-1989), and Uruguay (1973-1985). My main aim is to show the importance played by artistic forms of memorialization in a highly disregarded case of human rights abuses during the military dictatorships.

The theoretical framework of this investigation allies resources that belong to different disciplines: democratization studies (Linz & Stepan 1996, Garretón 1995, De Brito et ali. 2001), transitional justice analyses (concerning the trials of Condor), memory studies (Halbwachs, Ricoeur, Nora) and specifically cultural memory (Erll & Nunning 2010, Gomez-Barris 2009) with a focus on art of memory (Huyssen 2003, Arruti 2007) in post-dictatorial settings.

Author

• caterina preda