Ana Longoni "Embutes de la memoria"

Ana Longoni "Embutes de la memoria" (Memory Hideouts)
Español:
En la jerga de la militancia política clandestina en Argentina de los años sesenta y setenta un "embute" es un escondite, cualquier artilugio tan precario como ingenioso para trasladar un mensaje o la prensa prohibida, guardar documentos comprometedores, esconder armas, personas, vidas clandestinas. Esa palabra nos ubica de golpe en otro contexto histórico: el de una época de extendidas expectativas de transformación radical de la sociedad que se esparcieron en América Latina después del triunfo de la Revolución cubana. Una época que se clausuró con la pesada losa de la dictadura iniciada en Argentina el 24 de marzo de 1976, que sistematizó el terrorismo de Estado en una escala inédita: 30.000 desaparecidxs, más de 500 campos de concentración en todo el país, miles de asesinadxs, exiliadxs y presxs políticos.
Sin embargo, cincuenta años después de 1968, siguen apareciendo piezas clave de aquel archivo inconcluso. Estaban ocultos en embutes tan bien hechos que no se develaron hasta ahora. Se superponen en su origen y en su persistencia represión política y silencios familiares. Y la capacidad afectiva de desbloquearlos, encontrarlos y sacarlos a la luz, revelar y poner esos restos de otro tiempo en circulación. Lo que insiste en reaparecer. Imágenes perdidas (y a la vez resguardadas) en el espacio íntimo, aguardando condiciones históricas y afectivas de legibilidad que provoquen la posibilidad de su irrupción.
English:
In the jargon of clandestine political militancy in Argentina in the 1960s and 1970s an "embute" is a hiding place, any contraption as precarious as it is ingenious for carrying a message or the banned press, storing compromising documents, hiding weapons, people, clandestine lives. This word suddenly places us in another historical context: that of an era of widespread expectations of the radical transformation of society, that spread throughout Latin America after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. An era that ended with the heavy burden of the dictatorship that began in Argentina on 24 March 1976, which systematised state terrorism on an unprecedented scale: 30,000 disappeared, more than 500 concentration camps throughout the country, thousands of murdered people, exiles and political prisoners.
However, fifty years after 1968, key pieces from that unfinished archive are still emerging. They were hidden in well-crafted hideouts that were unveiled until now. Political repression and family silences overlap in their origin and persistence. And also the affective capacity to unblock, find and bring them back to light, to reveal and put these remnants of another time into circulation. Something that insists on reappearing. Images lost (and at the same time sheltered) in intimate spaces, awaiting historical and affective conditions of legibility that bring about the possibility of their irruption.
This lecture is part of the programme of the online symposium “Rethinking Conceptualism: Avant-Garde, Activism and Politics in Latin American Art (1960s-1980s)”
Panel discussion: Artists' Archives and Collectives
Q & A session with Ana Longoni, Vania Markarian and Fernanda Carvajal via Zoom: 18 March 2021, 18.00 h (GMT +1)
Website: rethinkingconc...
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Credits:
Video: Ana Longoni
Subtitles: Gladys Quintero Torres
Video editing: Katerina Valdivia Bruch and Jordi Valdivia Bruch
Portrait photo of Ana Longoni: © Joaquín Cortés, MNCARS
Graphic: Katerina Valdivia Bruch
CC Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
Rethinking Conceptualism: Avant-Garde, Activism and Politics in Latin American Art (1960s-1980s)
A project by Katerina Valdivia Bruch
In collaboration with Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut, Instituto Cervantes Berlin
Funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds, Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen
Supported by Embassy of Uruguay in Germany, Embassy of Chile in Germany
#rethinkingconceptualism, #symposium, #LatinAmericanart, #conceptualart, #conceptualism, #artistsarchives, #RedConceptualismosdelSur, #Argentineart, #AnaLongoni