Art as Transformative Memory

Art as Transformative Memory

International Panel Discussion

Date: 20 October 2022

Time: 7.00pm - 8:30pm

Location: Great Hall, Magee Campus

Professor Brandon Hamber, John Hume and Thomas P. O’Neill Chair in Peace at Ulster University in partnership with the Tranformative Memory International Network invites you to an international panel discussion.

This international panel of artists, activists and scholars offers reflections on the role of art and creative expression as modes to activate memory in ways that disrupt the status quo and as alternative to conventional legal ways of representing violence and trauma, such as truth commissions, monuments or in trials. How does art transform relations of violence that diminish, erase, and oppress?  How do songs, dance, images or stories open spaces to tell and represent loss and imagine other futures? How does visual and textile art, performance and film create other ways of being together and seeing and listening to the transformative potential of memory work? The panelists will offer reflections on these questions based on their work in Canada, Colombia and Uganda and a week-long MemoLab in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Facilitator: Paolo Vignolo, scholar (Colombia)

Panelists:

Erika Diettes, visual artist (Colombia)

Docus Atyeno, activist (Uganda)

Jeff Korondo, musician (Uganda)

Aimée Craft, scholar (Anishinaabe-Métis)

Paolo Vignolo is associate professor of history and humanities at the National University of Colombia, Bogota. His fields of research and creation deal with public history, cultural heritage and memory studies with a focus on geographic imaginaries, live arts and performance.

Erika Diettes is a visual artist and social communicator who graduated from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and has a master's degree in Anthropology from the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia. One of Erika Diettes’ focuses is her outstanding work with victims of the Colombian armed conflict.

Docus Atyeno is from Uganda and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Public Administration and a Diploma in Computer Science from Gulu University in Uganda, also Fundamental Framework for Peace building. She is an advocate for peace building and rights of fellow conflict affected women and children in enhancing justice and accountability for women affected by Lords Resistant Army (LRA) conflict, SGBV, reconciliation and reintegration of children born from captivity.

Jeff Korondo is Co-founder Music for Peace Musician and Community Peace Builder, U.S Professional Fellowship Program Alumnus. He has been composing, producing, and performing songs on peace, human rights, diseases, and social inclusion for socio-political transformation in northern Uganda since 1998.

Aimée Craft is an Associate Professor at the Faculty Law, University of Ottawa.  She is a lawyer from Treaty One territory in Manitoba and is of mixed Indigenous (Anishinaabe-Métis) and settler ancestry. She holds a University Research Chair Nibi miinawaa aki inaakonigewin: Indigenous governance in relationship with land and water.

The event will also include an exhibition from Conflict Textiles featuring pieces from Colombia, Chile, Uganda and Northern Ireland.

Hosts the Transformative Memory Network and the John Hume and Thomas P. O'Neill Chair in Peace, Ulster University.

The event is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Photo credit: La Cueca Sola / Dancing Cueca alone, Chilean arpillera, Anonymous, 1989, Oshima Hakko Museum collection, Japan. Photographer Martin Melaugh, © Conflict Textiles