Monuments and historicity: representations of the nation and disputes over the meaning of the past in the Colombian public space
Presented by the Colombian Studies Initiative: Past, Present and Futures (NYU/Universidad del Rosario), this talk seeks to contextualize and analyze the disputes over the meaning of the past (and its connections with the present and the future) in the Colombian public space, from a long-term perspective that allows characterizing the "social life of monuments" at different times.
During the 19th and 20th centuries, as in other Latin American countries, the commemorative monument became an important symbolic tool for nation-building projects, in turn inscribing itself in complex processes of urban modernization and the constitution of public art. The representations of the nation, its inhabitants and their past through bronze or marble configured, as happened with official historiography, hierarchies and inclusions-exclusions in the narrative of the common past that should be shared by the members of the “ imagined community ”. However, as in other parts of the world, the violence, inequalities and silences projected by traditional monuments have been challenged and questioned in recent years by various groups and social movements, which have intervened, redefined or attacked statues, pedestals , commemorative plaques and nomenclatures of public spaces
This talk seeks to contextualize and analyze the disputes over the meaning of the past (and its connections with the present and the future) in the Colombian public space, from a long-term perspective that allows characterizing the "social life of monuments" at different times. historical, from its design and inauguration, to its various reappropriations by various social actors in multiple presents. For this, some of the advances of the research project “Monuments and historicity. Towards a cultural history of Colombian monuments "
Featuring:
Sebastián Vargas Álvarez, Universidad del Rosario
Félix Manuel Burgos, New York University
Moderator: Bastien Andre Bosa, Universidad del Rosario
NOTE: This event is open to the public and will be held in Spanish.
