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This article delves into various sites of memory, such as monuments, mausoleums, and historical events, and examines the role of social rituals and collective remembering in preserving and shaping collective memory. It explores the concept of oral history, storytelling, and the performative nature of memory. The article also highlights the connection between memory, violence, and diaspora narratives.
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Social memory: places and rites of remembering February 10, 2009
The Swords of Qādisīyah, also called the Hands of Victory, Baghdad (1989)
Monument as site-specific art: Mount Rushmore National Memorial Keystone, South Dakota (1927-1941) Originally known to the Lakota Sioux as Six Grandfathers, this Native American sacred mountain was renamed after Charles E. Rushmore, a prominent New York lawyer, during an expedition in 1885. The site was seized from the Lakota tribe after the Great Sioux War of 1876-77.
Nation state and its monuments Ataturk’s mausoleum in Ankara- Anitkabir (1953)
“The term Ground Zero may be used to describe the point on the earth's surface where an explosion occurs.” (Wikipedia) Ground zero: WTC Site, New York 2001 Ground zero: Hiroshima 1945
Aerial view of the World Trade Center site, 2001.
New Orleans: An aerial view showing floodwaters around the entire downtown area after Hurricane Katrina (2005).
What is oral history? the interviewing of individuals about their personal experiences of past events for the purpose of recollectingalternative narratives, which are not necessarilybound by official histories, and which are essentially silenced by those official histories. • storytelling • performance • collective memory • narrativity
... that there were people who realised that the struggle of citizens against state power is the struggle of their memory against forced forgetting, and who made it their aim from the beginning not only to save themselves but to survive as witnesses to later generations, to become relentless recorders... Connerton 15
State violence and memory Population exchange between Greece and Turkey 1919-1922 1,400.000 uprooted
Maurice Halbwachs (11 March 1877 - 16 March 1945) a French philosopher and sociologist
Armenian family from Palu, Karakoçan/Depe/Tepeh Bedros and Mariam Bedrosian Manuk Vartanian’s wife Elizabeth Krekorian, from Palu
Surp Boghos Vank Church, Old Palu, Pesi (Nubshi) Village
Sites of memory Armenian Monastery in Akdamar Island in Lake Van, Eastern Turkey Cathedral Church of the Holy Cross (915-921 AD)
Memory is not stored: it is performed collective action that re-animates history by re-iteration, social performance
Collective memory, social performance and architectural space Pierre Nora: inscription of memory in the material world, architectural surfaces sites, places, landscapes of memory Paul Connerton: commemorative ceremonies ritual performances Bernard Tschumi: Event-places