Art from a Fractured Past: Memory and Truth-Telling in Post-Shining Path Peru

摘要

Art from a Fractured Past brings to light the wide-ranging possibilities of artistic language and the images to which people who lived through political violence in Peru have turned. While the realms of politics and culture have long intersected in Andean societies, the excruciating events and traumatic pain experienced in the 1980s and early 1990s have given the production of art new relevance. By promoting multiple memories and meanings and by breaking silences, works of art can challenge old frameworks and destabilise dominant narratives that marginalise the experiences of those who have suffered most. In her introduction, historian Cynthia Milton sketches out the book's central argument: that artistic forms of expression carry the potential for opening up communication and drawing a broader swath of society toward the unknown and into accepting different representations of Peru's violent past. Compiled on the eve of the 10-year anniversary of the publication of Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Final Report (1003), the book endeavours, through images and text examples of visual representation, storytelling and performance, 'to trace some of the ways Peruvians utilize artistic means to describe their past, to understand, and, in some sense, to bring about alternative justice, social repair, and a historical account' (p. 16).