AMA y No Olvida, Memory Museum Against Impunity

Participatory Archive, Documentary Research, photographic archive, memory objects, maps.

In Nicaragua, the government has denied the existence of victims of state violence, denied their right to mourn and declared war against the memory of those that have been killed. There is a violent dispute over public spaces that prevents the construction of memory marks or memorials in the urban space.

As a response I created AMA y No Olvida, Memory Museum against Impunity, a transmedia community based project in collaboration with the Association Mothers of April (AMA). AMA is a women led organization I am a member of that organizes the families of victims of brutal state violence, characterized by international human rights organizations as “crimes against humanity”. We gathered to protect, mobilize and share the stories of the victims in order to dispute the official narrative that criminalizes citizens who participated in civic protests and the climate of impunity fostered by the Nicaraguan government. We also recognize the museum as a way of community organizing toward a path of transformation.

It consists of a web-based archive and itinerant transmedia exhibition including a Virtual Reality experience, more than 200 video interviews, photographic archive, memory artifacts, and hand drawn that turned into geographic information systems (GIS) digital maps that geo-localize the narratives of the murder of almost 100 victims.

We created the museum with a participatory approach in which all members of the association have had an active role in the design of the museum, as well as presenting and gathering the information. It is one of the few in Latin America made collaboratively by the victims’ families.