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Exercises of memory: Mariela Yeregui

Thoughts on the horror, thirty years after the coup

Mariela Yeregui. Anamnesis (2006)

A bright mound of white linen on the floor. An object that glows and glitters. The work can be just that object. An object to watch. The work can also be a dynamics generating an anamnesis mechanism. But in order to remember we need to act. The observer can choose to watch from a distance or to get involved: Disclose and dig up. For that, the soft movement of your hand will start discovering the writings. The observer’s hand acts almost as a magnifying glass illuminating and disclosing the hidden.

(The term “anamnesis” refers to Aristotle’s tradition and is related to the process of memory and reminiscence: Through the information that the senses provide the body with about the physical reality –imperfect imitation of the universe of ideas-, the soul revives these ideas.) “[…] any and all knowledge is anamnesis and any true learning process is an effort for remembering what has been forgotten” (Rossana Cassigoli, “Memory and its tales”, Fractal n°13, April-June, 1999, year 3, volume IV, pp. 139-176.)

Unhealed scars of history are subjected to methodical erasing efforts by those who repress or validate said repression. Erasing is covering up, granting amnesty, and granting amnesty is forgetting, it is like maiming a common past and crippling the present and the future. In these blocks of discontinuities and amnesia, the text interrelate stories, concatenate senses. A linear continuity of the written words that allows articulating blocks of conscience, definitions of identity. Texts have been emblematic objects to erase and hide. To prohibit texts was a necessary action to guarantee amnesiac acts.

As a countermeasure and resistance, texts had to be safe kept, protected so as to reconstruct the maimed body of collective memory. Texts were buried so that, eventually, they could be unburied and could help reconstruct continuity in the social body.

In 1976 my father made a big package with books and records (Frantz Fannon, Marx, Paulo Freire, Daniel Viglietti, Bakunin and others.) He wrapped them in Manila paper. My two grandaunts, Aunt María and Aunt Carmen, lived in my great-grandparent’s house. In the backyard there was a lemon tree, an orange tree (from which we got our ammo for the savage wars we held with our cousins on Sundays), lots and product under… of plants, a huge rosebush, a henhouse and the fig tree the my great grandpa planted when he came from Spain. I was 10 years old and remember going with my dad in his blue Chevy, with the package of books, driving in my great grandpa’s place. Aunt María was waiting for us with Vermouth. My dad gave the package to Aunt María and told her that he was going to dig a hole in the backyard.

Anamnesis focuses on the act of unearthing. An object report – a subtle and effervescent reservoir that speaks of memory – holds texts. The observer’s actions unveil and discover pieces of text. His or her actions dis-entangle, dis-cover fragments. Just a soft movement will allow the texts to emerge linearly, to establish a link and construct sense. Only action can generate reminiscence, the emergence of ideas.

Mariela Yeregui