Creativity and resistance in Medellin's comunas: toward alternate visions of peacebuilding

Abstract

The two case studies presented here are situated in 'Comuna 13', notorious for its past guerrilla activity and repressed by military and paramilitary armed operations in the 2000s. 'Galeria Viva' (Living Gallery) and 'Cuerpos Gramaticales' (Grammatical Bodies) are two memorial initiatives conceived of here as resources for resistance. Through an annual commemoration event introduced in 2014, Cuerpos Gramaticales offers artistic and memorial performances in diverse public spaces of Medellin, enacting the partial burial of dozens of individuals to denounce the disappearance of their relatives in a mass grave in Comuna 13. Launched in 2017, Galeria Viva is a project that focuses on painting murals on the walls of the cemetery 'La América', representing teenagers that were assassinated; the paintings are generally co-produced with relatives of the victims.