The Blind Spots of Memory: Time, Photography, and the Interstitial Moment in Franz Krajnik’s "Uchuraccay" (2018)

• In Event: The Politics of Memory Art in Peru Today

Abstract

This paper takes a comparative look at the different ways the photographic medium has been used in Peru in order to reflect on the potential and limits it has in providing a platform in which to anchor national meanings and construct a sense of collective, national history (Sturken 20: 1997). Indeed, photographs as cultural objects are not static and impermeable in meaning but are reinvested and reframed in order to produce a social civil imagination about the past and present. These efforts, however, also reveal the tensions confronted by hegemonic cultural memory to create a cohesive and unified collective memory. Aware of how official memorial frameworks are inevitably inscribed by hierarchical dimensions of power that limit their effect, as well as the influence race, social class, and nationality are central to the institutional practices that produce canonical versions of the past, I explore the blind spots present within the official cultural memory discourse in Peru, particularly through critical reflection of the official visual archive of the Peruvian Truth Commission “Yuyanapaq: Para Recordar. Narrativa Visual del Conflicto Armado Interno” (2003). Moreover, and taking into consideration the temporal turn in queer studies, I analyze how artistic memory work of the photography project “Uchuraccay” by Peruvian photographer Franz Krajnik (2018) showcases the potentiality of alternative non-modern modes of remembering and temporality can have in unsettling the gendered and racialized dichotomy of “remembered” & “remembering” imbedded within the national imaginary and official memorial imperatives in Peru.

Author

• Daniella Wurst, Columbia University