Healing from Peru's Dirty War: Trauma, Memory, and Visual Arts

Abstract

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.