Healing from Peru's Dirty War: Trauma, Memory, and Visual Arts
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Author
Vainstein, Aria Bianca Maria
Subject
Washington and Lee University -- Poster in Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Sendero Luminoso (Guerrilla group)
Arts -- Therapeutic use
Collective memory in art
Peru
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Poster; [FULL-TEXT RESTRICTED TO WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY LOGIN] Aria Bianca Maria Vainstein is a member of the Class of 2011 of Washington and Lee University. In this paper, I explore the traumatic effects in Peru after the twenty-year-long internal conflict between Sendero Luminoso (the Shining Path) and the Government(s) of Peru specifically through recent Peruvian art. In order to complement contemporary memory and trauma theories, I analyze visual arts produced during the war and the reconciliation period directly afterwards. After providing important terminology and significant background information on the war, I evaluate Senderista propaganda, drawings by a Peruvian artist who decried the human rights abuses, and the monument "El ojo que llora" ("The Eye that Cries") dedicated to the victims of the war. In order to support my theory that the visual arts are a direct resource to cope with trauma and to preserve memory, I will draw upon the theories presented by various scholars, including Nigel C. Hunt, Pierre Nora, and Robert Bevan. Aria Bianca Maria Vainstein