Delicia Alarcón
Midterm Response
10/10/2023
dda8357@nyu.edu
Memory Trauma and Performance
Prof. Diana Taylor
Invisible Archives Made Visible
Memory Trauma and Performance are interconnected and all form layers of existence at the individual and collective level. In reading Freud the first notion that came to mind was the idea of knowing and presence of the trauma or perceived trauma. Though Freud does not explicitly form a definition of trauma he does describe more the importance of the awareness of trauma. Despite a patient knowing, remembering, or even understanding the trauma the trauma is inevitably present. Freud states,“finally, there was evolved the consistent technique used today, in which the analyst gives up the attempt to bring a particular moment or problem into focus. He contents himself with studying whatever is present for the time being on the surface of the patient’s mind, and he employs the art of interpretation” (Freud 147). Thus, in order to heal a particular trauma or experience one must bring it to focus and consciousness. Freud goes on to say, “in these processes it particularly could never have been ‘forgotten’ because it was never at any time noticed–was never conscious’ (Freud 149). As a result, a particular instance or trauma can not be forgotten or even healed if it was never noticed or brought into consciousness and conscious awareness. Thus, the first step in individual and collective healing is to bring forth the trauma or instances of trauma, and acknowledge its very existence. To allow space for the trauma or persons experiences in any given space. Once that is present then healing can take place. This deeply connects to my work in bringing awareness to Paraguay, the Stroessner Regime and the Movements created to overthrow the dictatorship. The performance of entering these archives Archivo de Terror is a way of making these documents visible. The regime meticulously documented the trauma people endured yet their humanity was stripped away. As a result, it’s imperative to do the work of uncovering these stories and making them visible in order for the Paraguayan collective to heal. Similarly, Cathy Caruth discusses the delayed response or recognition of the trauma. She states, “which takes the form of repeated, intrusive hallucinations, dreams, thoughts, or behaviors stemming from the event” (4). The repetition of these events brings up the trauma in a way for it to be acknowledged and contested. It is important to pay attention in order to be able to heal from the trauma that is manifesting itself in the body, in dreams, and another form of arousal or stimuli. Though this relates to the individuals experiencing the healing, opening an archive which holds this trauma it inevitably produces a form of arousal and stimuli. This feeling and visceral reaction moves the individual in the archive which leads to research or production of cultural artifacts. These artifacts bring forth the visibility of the trauma as Freud intended and perhaps healing could begin to happen once it’s acknowledged.
Thus, in The Body Keeps the Score Van der Kolk teaches us how through the body memory and trauma is stored. The body as a vessel and site for change but also in need of deep release from trauma experienced time over time. For Van der Kolk, Trauma is an ongoing process that operates in the mind, body, and spirit. He states, “being traumatized means continuing to organize your life as if the trauma were still going on—unchanged and immutable—as every new encounter or event is contaminated by the past (67). As a result, one’s body holds the trauma and operates from this place of hurt as if it is still ongoing. Therefore, in my work when I open an archival document it’s as if the trauma still resides there. I believe that making it visible like Freud says to bring awareness will heal the individual and the collective. Reading these pieces encompassed the work I do and also has opened my eyes to how this personal experience and ritual of entering the archive is also performance. Paul Conerton and Marianne Hirsch’s work really supported me in processing my own research and archival work. The themes of memory, the body as a site of memory, family, intergenerational, transgenerational memory are interconnected with trauma, memory, and performance. When Paul Connerton in How Societies Remember states “do something that traps and holds information long after the human organism has stopped informing” (73) resonated with me and the notion to capture and encapsule memory. The urge and deep desire to encapsulate memory through a contained medium – art, stories, performance, the physical body. For Paul memory means encapsulating work, documents, performance, stories, etc. Memory thus is the act of keeping something that may no longer exist–alive.
Marianne Hirsch and the text “The Generation of Postmemory” brings up the family gaze as a theme to disrupt and problematize. The unit of family is also like Paul Connerton states– a human organism. This notion of family gaze really struck me because as my work revolves around my grandfather’s legacy and subsequently my legacy as the 3rd generation – I couldn’t help but think about this deeply. As Marianne Hirsch states, “these “acts of transfer”, to use Paul Connerton’s term, not only transform history into memory, but enable memories to be shared across individuals and generations” (31). Therefore, memory is an operative process where one must encapsulate the memory and then transfer the memory. Through my work I am in tandem encapsulating memory from Paraguay that has been forgotten, purposely censored, and invisibilized and working to transfer this information and memory into a cultural artifact such as a documentary that could be shared globally. The performance of archival visits, interviews, story-telling and creating this documentary work together to make the trauma people experienced visible in hopes of collective healing. Marianne goes on to say, “throughout this book, however, I argue that postmemory is not an identity position but a generational structure of transmission embedded in multiple forms of mediation. Family life, even in its most intimate moments, is entrenched in a collective imaginary shaped by public, generational structures of fantasy and projection and by a shared archive of stories and images that inflect the broader transfer and availability of individual and familial remembrance (33). This notion of family remembrance is a performance and transferring of memory and trauma. In reading Marianne Hirsch I realized how my identity position within this generational structure of fantasy, family gaze, and public imagination intersect and are working to create a new form of collective identity and memory. In conclusion, the work I personally do is making the invisibility in the archive visible. My mission is to create a space where the people who suffered the trauma during the dictator regime are humanized through the projects and cultural artifacts created. To name these individuals and make their stories visible creates a post memory transfer to other generations that could heal future generations to come.
Works Cited
Connerton, Paul. How Societies Remember, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1989.
Freud, Sigmund. “Remembering, Repeating and Working-Through.” Standard Edition 12 (1950): 145-157.
Hirsch, Marianne. The Generation of Postmemory : Writing and Visual Culture after the Holocaust. New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, 2012.
Kolk, Bessel van der. The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma. London: Penguin Books, 2014.