ephemeral memorials

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Event details

In the walkshop we will attempt to explore whether walking practice can reconstruct memorization and public mourning policies, beyond the regulatory archiving of state collective memory, and how we can focus on the “other memorials” that interrupt hegemonic cultures in relation to memorization policies and practices. More specifically, we will discuss the concept of an ephemeral memorial and how a public performative mourning can empower and make visible marginalized dead whose memory has been suppressed for years. The deprivation of public mourning for the defeated of the Greek civil war fostered long silences and initiated a collective trauma. Various memorials were created at different times to celebrate and mark the victories, while the state neglected to give space for mourning in places of marginalized memory, such as places and camps of exile, mass burial grounds, battlefields, etc. Memory couldn’t be expressed for years, grief remained hidden and invisible in the public sphere, bereavement didn’t fit into the official certainties of public memory dealing and the dominant expressions of “national” mourning. Prespa- and its surroundings- is a topos of marginalized history and suppressed memory, therefore while walking, we will question ourselves with the following:
How does the performative integration of political bereavement can make visible the trauma that has been silenced?
Is it possible to create another alternative memorial that interrupts hegemonic memorization policies?
Keywords: mourning, collective memory, trauma, remembrance

Walkshop info
Our meeting point will be at Laimos village (exact place will be announced). There we will talk about certain historical facts concerning the Greek civil war and the area. After, we will start walking towards Koula beach (4,7 klm), a narrow stretch of land between the two lakes on the way to Psarades. In Koula, on 13 August 1949, several bomber aircrafts attacked a long line of people and livestock marching. These people had been forced to evacuate their villages Laimos and Ag. Germanos a few days before the end of civil war.
Although the beautiful landscape of Prespa masks the traumatic memories of the past, we will attempt to embody the memory of this historical moment, marching at the same direction.

There will be a possibility for transfer by car from Psarades to Laimos and back.

Walking as a Question

Conference · 109 items