Work Meeting Audience Expansion in Museums and Other Spaces of Memory

In the context of the Mandatory and Preventive Social Isolation (ASPO), and spread out in two online sessions, the First 2020 Work Meeting between Museums and Other Spaces of Memory took place in June, with the participation of the Secretary of Human Rights Horacio Pietragalla Corti. The goal was establishing an exchange on audience expansión in these places, as well as producing contents for the ESMA Museum and Site of Memory’s nomination le for the Unesco World Heritage List, a key line to work on a shared agenda.

Attendees laid out the issues that exist in their sites regarding tourist reception (uninformed visitors), advertising targeted to uninformed adults, tours and activities for minors, and the transmission of Memory through other languages. They also expressed their ideas about the Unesco nomination.

Our country’s rich and diverse experiences in memorialization are an essential contribution to the policies of Memory, Truth and Justice, strengthening the ESMA Museum and Site of Memory’s nomination to the Unesco World Heritage List and promoting the State’s commitment to the continuity and expansion of these initiatives.

Inputs from the attendees

Horacio Pietragalla Corti – SECRETARY OF HUMAN RIGHTS
“We are very happy to meet our colleagues from so many Sites of Memory,
many of which have been forgotten and defunded in recent years.
The pandemic makes it impossible to move forward with our scheduled
agenda, but we must unite and strengthen in order to creatively reect on
the ways to obtain resources and support these sites.”

Natalia Barreiro – UNDERSECRETARY OF HUMAN RIGHTS PROMOTION
“These days allow us to stop and think more specically about how to
move forward. The idea is to consider Sites not just as places where the
community goes to learn about State Terrorism, but to provide them with a
much wider dimension in the context of Human Rights promotion.”

Alejandra Naftal – DIRECTOR OF THE ESMA MUSEUM AND SITE OF MEMORY
“The idea is that the Unesco nomination can speak to the world about the
avant-garde we have in Argentina regarding policies of Memory, Truth and
Justice. In that sense, these meetings are always very important to discuss
the specicity of each Site, yet always under the shared umbrella of
Human Rights policies.”

Norberto Berner – REPRESENTATIVE OF THE NATIONAL DIRECTION OF SITES OF MEMORY
“The fact that the State is carrying out Human Rights policies means a lot
more than allocating resources. It has to do with transmitting history so we
will never again see events like the ones that took place in clandestine
centers. In that sense, these meetings and the candidacy are essential.”

Laura Duguine – FORMER CLUB ATLÉTICO, CABA
“All of us are inevitably wondering how we will go back to work, under what
protocols, with what insertion. In our case, despite the fact that we are
located in the city’s Old Quarter, a large part of our public is a captive
audience, schools and workshops. In that context, for a while now we
believe that there should be different kinds of tours, different ways to reach
different audiences, it is something that we always had pending. We are
currently working on an audio guide.”

Samanta Salvatori – STATE COMMISSION FOR MEMORY, BUENOS AIRES PROVINCE
“In the case of the Commission, our story is more related to covering the intelligence associated with State Terrorism. We conceived tours in which visitors have an active role. We thought of conversation tours and we are now including more interactive tools that help us find that viewer. Sharing our experiences is very positive, I think we need to strengthen our connection as a form of resistance.”

Ramón Baibene – STATE DIRECTION OF COMPENSATION POLICIES, BUENOS AIRES PROVINCE
“We see this connection between different sItes as a possibility of addressing different Human Rights issues. It is usually the other way around –that is, we take the issues down from inter-national treaties to the sites– so, inverting this and drawing conclusions from the territories is a very important thing. Especially because the realities of the sites in the provinces are very different, with diverse stages and a wide array of social conditions.”

María Coronel – FORMER FAMAILLÁ SCHOOL, TUCUMÁN
“I believe we must slowly start to think about the day we will be able to open the sites again, highlighting the role they fulfill within the State. In that sense, we should think about how we can create a different model of society from our sites. Also, how we can combine a joint effort with schools in order to contribute to building generations that will be more engaged with our history.”

Leonardo Fosatti – FORMER 5TH PRECINCT, LA PLATA, BUENOS AIRES PROVINCE
“In this first year in which we opened our doors we did extensive work locally to establish the site within the interests of the City Hall. Our idea was to reach an audience that has an interest not only in politics but in tourism. I believe the main goal of our sites is to have the biggest amount of people learning the recent history of our country, paying attention to the specificities of each case. We must make every tool available to that end.”

Ana Pecoraro – FORMER ESIM – MEMORY LIGHTHOUSE, MAR DEL PLATA, BUENOS AIRES PROVINCE
“The grassroots work we carry out on the site is essential. It is our shared identity. In our case, for example, that territoriality allows us today to coordinate a neighborhood emergency committee and, among other things, bring food aid to our community during the pandemic. This made us notice there are audiences we are not reaching, specially disadvantaged neighborhoods in our proximity that have no information about the site. We should ask ourselves what our role will be in the territories when this situation ends and how the new State will join us in that process.”

Zulema Chester – EL CHALET (POSADAS HOSPITAL), EL PALOMAR, BUENOS AIRES PROVINCE
“We have the unique characteristic of being inside a national hospital and this runs through us in every way. We welcome many groups of doctors or nurses who come to the hospital and express an interest to see our Site of Memory. Our everyday work is complicated because we are a handful or people and the truth is it would be impossible without the help of different institutions. Anyway, we continue to try and build up the creation of a sense of Memory even in difficult everyday conditions”.

Salomé Grunblatt – ESMA MUSEUM AND SITE OF MEMORY, CABA
“Due to its location and visibility, the Museum attracts many visitors every year, an amount we even aimed to surpass this year. Since this context makes that impossible, we are trying to come up with new strategies to maintain and transmit memory to the audience. Eventually we will restart activities in the Museum, but, meanwhile, virtual audiences are something we must pay attention to because they are now a part of our everyday life. Beyond the quantitative element, how many people connect with our social media, we must consider the qualitative aspect and see what kind of interesting materials we can produce and share.”

Antonela Di Vruno – PUBLIC ENTITY SPACE FOR MEMORY AND THE PROMOTION AND DEFENSE OF HUMAN RIGHTS, CABA
“The importance of these places is related to the experience of actually being there in these sites, so we undoubtedly must think about how to keep communicating and being present in this context. Still, although we agree on the importance of the on-site experience we also bet in its political and educational role, a line we can develop now during the pandemic. In this sense, we in the Public Entity are working on news spreading, special offers, and archive recovery.”

Lucas Massuco – MUSEUM OF MEMORY, ROSARIO, SANTA FE
“It’s important that we constantly expand the network of partnerships and strengthen the bonds we Argentine sites have built over the years. We are aware of our limitations in terms of budget and human resources. From that base, we must rethink strategies, unite work schedules and evaluate proposals brought to us by fellow activists.”

Emilio Vanhoutte – FORMER ORLETTI AUTOSHOP, CABA
“In our case, Orletti was a venue of the Condor Plan, so we have a lot of tourists from other countries who are informed and come specifically to see the place because they know the history and how it connects with kidnapped people from their countries. But there are also uninformed people who just walk in because we step out to the door and tell them what this place used to be. We also work with groups of migrants and children to expand our community.”

María Eleonora Cristina – STATE MEMORY ARCHIVES, CÓRDOBA
“We carry out different strategies to connect with the community. From the beginning, we receive children aged 4 and older for workshops or reading circles. On the other hand, we’ve always supported the process of Justice in Córdoba. In that sense, we keep a film archive of every trial that has been conducted in the province, and we made it available for victims of State Terrorism, organizations, relatives, scholars and institutions”.

Hugo Colaone y Viviana Buscaglia – FORMER QUILMES PIT, QUILMES, BUENOS AIRES PROVINCE
“It’s very good that we can meet even in this context, and do it as a State policy. We have been struggling for the past few years. Finally, we managed to rebuild the site and open to the public in 2017, so we are very new. Guided tours are the result of our activism, because we did it all by the sweat of our brow. Hence, these visits are all previously scheduled, not for unannounced tourists.”

Gladis D’alessandro – LAS FLORES, BUENOS AIRES PROVINCE
“In our case, the Relatives Commission connects with different groups to expand our reach. We have links with gender organizations and areas, cultural workers’ cooperatives, teachers and students from primary schools and highschools. On the other hand, although we have always been supported by the Provincial Memory Commission, we still have the need to refurbish the site because it has infrastructure problems”.

Carmelo Vinci – PELLONI HILL, OLAVARRÍA, BUENOS AIRES PROVINCE
“In our case we welcome mostly schools, as the result of our work together with the SUTEBA union, which works along with their teachers to prepare students before they visit us. We also have carried out very satisfactory work with the university. We took on a signaling process so visitors can take a self-guided tour when we, the survivors who run this place, are not available. In any case, everything is hard because we are in a city that doesn’t have an institutional framework regarding Human Rights”.

Alejandra Guerra – TRELEW MASSACRE CULTURAL CENTER, TRELEW, CHUBUT
“For us it is hard to think about how to address the site and the story if the visitors don’t have some previous knowledge. So, usually those who come to the site are people who already know something about it, and we take them on tours in dialogue. We have a link with the tourism area but we still have a hard time reaching audiences due to different reasons, such as the lack of proper brochures.”

María Mendizábal – FORMER OLIMPO, CABA
“It’s important that we view sites not as homogenic places but as spaces where diversities can connect. In our case, we don’t have a script, we have a line of work and an idea to be open to those who come to us with a proposal. Those of us who lead the tours view it precisely as a form of connection”.

Daniel Prassel Y Juana Campero – FORMER BANFIELD PIT, BANFIELD, BUENOS AIRES PROVINCE
“Our strategy is related to interacting with every sphere in Lomas de Zamora, connecting with every sector and expanding those networks. We have carried out initiatives together with schools, professional associations, neighbors, and we intend to keep connecting with more collectives in order to establish a wide territorial presence.”

María Julia Porta – FORMER EL INFIERNO, AVELLANEDA, BUENOS AIRES PROVINCE
“Our place is run by the City and is strongly connected with the National University of Avellaneda. In this pandemic context we are receiving relatives of people who are detained in different police precincts in Avellaneda and we offer them assistance. This made us think about what other doors we can keep opening as Sites of Memory. In our case, this healthcare emergency redirected us towards having a new connection with more vulnerable sectors.”

Lucía Capriotti y Mario Paredes – FORMER RIVERSIDE FIELD, CÓRDOBA
“Our territorial policy is always on, even if we are currently under construction. We usually don’t get single or uninformed visitors who just walk in, instead of that we coordinate with different sectors. We have done research on several work experiences with children for quite some time, and tried to be present all throughout their schooling. When they get to learn about issues related to State Terrorism they already have some knowledge because they have worked with us since kindergarten.“

Julia Soulier y Matías Capra – FORMER LA PERLA, CÓRDOBA
“We have two types of visitors: tourists, whom we ask how they got here and they usually answer that it was thanks to the signs on the road, and spontaneous visitors who know what the place is about and they come to see the site with a previous notion of what it is. They are either groups or individuals. We try to carry out a comprehensive work in order to offer different visits for all of them.”

Inputs from the attendees

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