In the framework of the cycle Dialogues on disasters, violence and impunity (II) organized by El Born Cultural and Memorial Center of Barcelona, ​​Juan Albarrán Diego (professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, member of MoDe(s)) and Carles Guerra (director of the Fundació Tàpies, Barcelona) were invited to discuss the issue of violence and its possible – and impossible – representations through art. The dialogue was moderated by Paula Barreiro López (University of Barcelona, ​​MoDe(s) main researcher).

Taking into account the present context in which conflicts and episodes of violence are increasingly covered by the media and subject to a constant processing through images, and in order to question the relation between the visibilization of forms of torture and violence exercised throughout the twentieth century and the articulation of a collective memory operative in the present, this conversation addressed different modes of representing, creating stories and critical pedagogies about traumatic events, not only related to the recent history of the Spanish state, but also to other conflicts on a global scale.

This dialogue falls under the program “Evocacions de la Ruïna” (Evocation of Ruin), which seeks to question the absences and ethical failures of the Spanish democracy when it deals with its past of war and dictatorship.

Related topics:
– Exhibition in the framework of the Peace Treaty project. 1989. After the Conversations of Algiers. Delirium and Truce, curated by Carles Guerra at Artium (Vitoria-Gasteiz), and the Tàpies Foundation (Barcelona).
– Juan Albarrán’s publications on torture and new artistic behaviors in Spain (in Spanish language).
Sentir el cuerpo: performance, tortura y masoquismo en el entorno de los nuevos comportamientos, en Arte, individuo y sociedad, ISSN 1131-5598, Vol. 25, Nº 2, 2013, 303-318.
Violencia política y visualidad. Sobre la representación de la tortura en democracia, en Tiempo presente. Revista de Historia, ISSN-e 2340-0358, Nº. 2, 2014, 19-32.