In the texts “You Are Here – H.I.J.O.S and the DNA of Performance” and “Tortous Routes – Four Walks through Villa Grimaldi,” Diana Taylor investigates memory, trauma, and performance based on the relationship with dictatorships in Latin America. The first addresses the different political movements taken up by mothers, grandmothers, and children of those who disappeared in Argentina. In the second, the focus is Villa Grimaldi, a place used for torture during the regime of Chilean dictator Pinochet and later transformed into a memorial.
Based on the observation that performance transmits traumatic memory and political commitment, the author asks how this happens, including reception and transmission by those who witness it. Both trauma and performance have similarities, such as occurring affectively in the present in a repetitive way, and significant differences, such as the possibility of separating actions to the actors who perform them in contrast to the impossibility of separating the subject from their traumatic experience. By emphasizing the public and non-pathological repercussions of trauma, social actors transform personal pain into a driver of social change.
Taylor recounts some of his visits to Villa Grimaldi. In 2006, the tour guided by Matta, a victim of the dictatorship, was quite impactful. Hearing the account of the trauma through the body of the person who suffered it in the place of the event provoked an immersive experience. In 2012, with the place renovated and guided by pre-recorded audio, the experience became more impersonal. “Trauma lives in the body, not in the archive” (Taylor 2023; 201); the memorial lost its memory characteristic and became History. In 2013, she went with colleagues and invited Matta and a friend, also a victim of torture, as guides. Functioning as Matta’s translator, Taylor found herself troubled by the experience of embodying his words accompanied by his pain. “The how determines the what.” (Taylor 2023; 202).
In Argentina, the protests examined have a generational line relating to the disappeared. While the grandmothers and mothers of Plaza de Mayo act out collective trauma through ritualistic movements in the square, the H.I.J.O.S act through “escrache,” performances of festive denunciation aimed at the public execration of criminals. In addition to the genetic link, there is also a political and performative link – such as the use of photo identity documents. This practice of linking scientific and performative claims is called the “DNA of performance” by the author and is constituted by the archive and the repertoire. Embodied experience and the transmission of traumatic memory make a difference in how knowledge is transmitted. The performance contributes to the proof of the claim itself, as “Facts cannot speak for themselves” (Taylor 2020; 176).
Actually, facts are not facts per se. As Taylor exemplifies, supposedly “neutral” photographs are highly ideological. The archive is the result of human construction. However, the archive contains an imaginary of indisputable proof of the truth. Hence, part of the strength of photographs in the performances of missing people and the commitment of dictatorial governments to make photographs of the disappeared disappear. However, as the author highlights, the use of photography by H.I.J.O.S reflects more the power of the repertoire than of the archive, as the intention is to mark the continuities of the performance concerning the madres. Again, “The how determines the what.” (Taylor 2023; 202)
One of the author’s initial questions is how we can participate and contribute to transmitting these memories. “The past is full of olvido” (Taylor 2023, 187) because “Memory is a tool and a political project” (Taylor 2023, 188). So, testifying is also a political tool, it is a way of fighting against erasure.
References
Taylor, Diana. 2003. “”You Are Here”: H.I.J.O.S. and the DNA of Performance” The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas. 161-189. Durham: Duke University Press.
Taylor, Diana. 2020. “Tortuous Routes: Four Walks through Villa Grimaldi” ¡Presente!: The Poetics of Presence. 175-202. Durham: Duke University Press.