(Aesth)etics of horror: images of the “dominant memory” in Colombia

Abstract

The objective of this text is to present the conceptual tenets and some methodological approaches of the research study called “Las fotografías del ¡Basta ya!: hacia una construcción visual de la violencia política en Colombia” (The photos of ¡Basta ya!: towards a visual construction of political violence in Colombia), which is carried out within the framework of the substantiating seminar “Memoria, territorio y construcción de identidad” (Memory, territory and construction of identity) of the B.A. in Social Sciences in Universidad Pedagógica Nacional in Colombia. The aim is to analyse the 121 photos (plus a gallery of 26 photos) included in the report “¡Basta ya! Colombia: memorias de guerra y dignidad” (Enough! Colombia: memories of war and dignity) published in 2013 by the Group of Historical Memory. In this research photos are understood as a kind of narrative that engages in a dialogue with the written text and with other photographic images. As historic-social products photos give an account of the political context in which they were taken and bring to the present the traces of the past. Indeed, there is no memory without images. Photographic images represent the past in a fragmented way, they construct corresponding meanings and facilitate the transmission of past events to new generations. What do the photos of “¡Basta ya!” show? What kind of memory do they construct? What relation to the past do they facilitate? In what way do these photos visually construct the victims of the socio-political violence in Colombia?