Sites of Historical Memory: Using Re-memory to Expose Silence (original) (raw)

We are largely unaware of the invisible forces at work that shape both the space we inhabit and our experience of that space. Therefore, it is necessary to interrogate the physical markers that shape that experience. "Sites of Historical Memory: Using Re-memory to Expose Silence" poses the question: what is the purpose of a site of memory? From the entry point of the Confederate monument, "Silent Sam," at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, this thesis interrogates the silences inherent in representation, how these silences came to be, and the memory strategies that attempt to reckon with them. This thesis posits that sites of memory serve to create and promote national identity through the appropriation and distortion of memory. The sites discussed are repositioned as sites of "historical memory" to illustrate both this manipulation of memory and how they are understood through the framework of dominant historical narratives. The sites examined include the Relaciones Geográficas, maps commissioned in 1577 by King Phillip II of Spain to understand and consolidate resources in New Spain and construct the place of the Americas, the Confederate monument "Silent Sam," and two anti-monuments created in response to Confederate monuments, Unsung Founders, Bond and Free by Do-Ho Suh, and Rumors of War by Kehinde Wiley. The analysis is based on the theory of "re-memory" or "re-membering," piecing together the past and revealing silence to challenge dominant narratives. Using Michel-Rolf Trouillot's formula of where silences enter in the production of history this thesis examines where silences enter in the creation and designation of these sites as "sites of memory" and how they function in the assertion of a dominant narrative about history and national identity. This thesis traces the coloniality of power that structures contemporary experiences of space and time, beginning with the attempted placemaking of the Relaciones Geográficas and examining iv SUMMARY (continued) how this placemaking manifests in the racialized space of Silent Sam. This examination continues with an analysis of how attempts to recover memory and redress wrongs through the installation of anti-monuments, illustrated through Unsung Founders and Rumors of War, further distort and commodify memory. The final chapter argues how the recurrent production of knowledge around the Relaciones Geográficas and Silent Sam demonstrates the recuperative potential of "remembering" and challenges the linear progress myth stemming from the "Discovery." This thesis concludes that sites of historical memory assert a false homogeneity of the experience of space, they exist in mythical time. However, they are also liminal spaces where we constantly revisit and revise our relationship with and understanding of the past, present, and future. The people that interact with the space of these sites instigate "re-membering." They are the physical memory traces. People resist their suppression, exposing both the traumas of the past and the force used to maintain hierarchies and power in the present. I.