Art from a Fractured Past: Memory and Truth-Telling in Post-Shining Path Peru

Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission not only documented the political violence of the 1980s and 1990s but also gave Peruvians a unique opportunity to examine the causes and nature of that violence. In Art from a Fractured Past, scholars and artists expand on the commission's work, arguing for broadening the definition of the testimonial to include various forms of artistic production as documentary evidence. Their innovative focus on representation offers new and compelling perspectives on how Peruvians experienced those years and how they have attempted to come to terms with the memories and legacies of violence. Their findings about Peru offer insight into questions of art, memory, and truth that resonate throughout Latin America in the wake of "dirty wars" of the last half century. Exploring diverse works of art, including memorials, drawings, theater, film, songs, painted wooden retablos (three-dimensional boxes), and fiction, including an acclaimed graphic novel, the contributors show that art, not constrained by literal truth, can generate new opportunities for empathetic understanding and solidarity.

Contributors. Ricardo Caro C rdenas, Jes s Cossio, Ponciano del Pino, Cynthia M. Garza, Edilberto J menez Quispe, Cynthia E. Milton, Jonathan Ritter, Luis Rossell, Steve J. Stern, Mar a Eugenia Ulfe, V ctor Vich, Alfredo Villar


Author: Cynthia E. Milton
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 02/21/2014
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9780822355304

About the Author
Cynthia E. Milton is Canada Research Chair and Associate Professor of Latin American History at the Université de Montréal. She is the author of The Many Meanings of Poverty: Colonialism, Social Compacts, and Assistance in Eighteenth-Century Ecuador and a coeditor of Curating Difficult Knowledge: Violent Pasts in Public Places and The Art of Truth-Telling about Authoritarian Rule.