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• 1 2017-05-30T16:06:18-07:00 Memorializing the Prison Space 14 plain 2017-06-14T17:22:05-07:00

  One of the principal locations used as a torture and detention center during the argentinian dictatorship was the ex-ESMA (Escuela Superior de Mecánica de la Armada) [the Navy Petty-Officers School of Mechanics]. Before and during the dictatorship, the ESMA graduated classes of mechanics for the Argentinian Navy, many of whom fought and died in the Guerra de las Malvinas [the Falklands War] in 1982. As the school was still operational during a majority of the dictatorship, portions of the campus were dedicated to military education while others were used as clandestine prison spaces. From the onset of the military overthrow of the government, this space was used to torture thousands of extrajudicially imprisoned people, most of whom were executed, beginning on the first day of the coup d’état.

  In 2004, President Néstor Kirchner began the conversion of the ex-ESMA into the Espacio para la Memoria y para la Promoción y Defensa de los Derechos Humanos [Space for the Memory, Promotion and Defense of Human Rights], also known as the Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos. Rather than setting aside this space as a vacant reminder of the atrocities committed during the dictatorship or demolishing it in an attempted erasure of these memories, the re-inauguration of the ex-ESMA established it as a site of education, interaction, and art. "Memoria colectiva" is a 25 minute documentary about the current function of the space, which also serves as a promotional video for the ex-ESMA.

  As both the Naval mechanics school and the torture center, the ESMA served as a space of nationalist education. For the former, the students were taught to fight for their country, while the latter attempted to indoctrinate or weaken the ideology of political dissidents. The inauguration of this space as a site of memory and human rights continued its legacy as a center of education, but breaks with its nationalist tradition, instead presenting information about the dictatorship. In addition to the historical education, the Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos serves as a community center, offering classes ranging from dance to gardening. Throughout the portion of the ex-ESMA that was used as a torture center, there are placards explaining what happened in these spaces, which are accompanied by guided tours. Portions of "Memoria colectiva" are narrated by a tour guide who is in the process of taking visitors through the space. Rather than (re)presenting a space of torture, as the other films and documentary do, "Memoria colectiva" attempts to present the prison space as it existed, with factual information.

  While the ex-ESMA does not try to erase its past, it does attempt to reimagine the spaces of torture in a way that infuses it with creation, not just loss. When touring a space that contained and represents severe amounts of loss and death, one can feel enveloped by the isolation and sadness of those who were disappeared. The new function of the ex-ESMA saturates this space with art installations, which, while representing those who were lost, add a sense of artistic creation to the space, a positive reimagination of the torture site. This site is careful not to erase the desaparecidos and their torture, which would benefit the perpetrators of the dictatorship by essentially wiping out memory of the atrocities they committed. Instead, the art highlights the actions of the military junta, but re-presents and redefines this space as one of collective memory.