A Calendar Against Forgetting: Memory of the Internal Armed Conflict in Peru (1980-2000) in the Project “Un Día en la Memoria” (2011), by Mauricio Delgado

Abstract

This article aims to reflect on issues involving the relations between photography, memory and testimony, and analyze how those relations are present in the Net Art project “Un día en la memoria” (2011), by Mauricio Delgado. In this project, Delgado proposes a ressignification of the ordinary calendars which highlight the dates related to civic and religious celebrations, creating a calendar on which all days of the year are marked by the recent history of the Internal Armed Conflict (CAI) which took place in Peru, between the year 1980 and 2000. For the making of the calendar, the artist resorted to testimonies and photographs released by the journalistic and official State press, and by the Human Rights Organizations in his country, and applied several digital arts techniques to such material, offering it a new aspect. Thus, the reflections proposed here derive from the need to answer questions regarding the way this project turns into counterinformation art, once it interferes in the public space (virtual and urban) as a means of defying the collective amnesia.