A Museum for Me
A Museum for Me takes research findings from the AHRC research project Memory, Victims, and Representations of the Colombian Conflict and translates these into research impacts. A Museum for Me is about creating and curating cultural spaces, resources, and activities for sharing personal stories, and facilitating communication between different social actors and the wider public on issues of memory, representation, and the visibility of victims – in Colombia and in the UK - of the armed conflict.
A Museum for Me is a place where the representation - or invisibility - of victims of the Colombian conflict can be scrutinised and re-cast; it is a space where gendered or identity-based forms of violence - and of solidarity and resistance - are revealed through life-affirming, cultural forms of truth-telling; A Museum for Me is where the stories of the silenced can be gently communicated or loudly broadcast, and stories of creativity and peacebuilding celebrated.
A Museum for Me works with museums, galleries, schools, and community groups, and curates its own virtual museum to showcase the creative campaigning of its counterparts. For example, Mujer Diáspora / Diaspora Women, a grassroots UK network that has campaigned for the recognition of Colombian exiles and migrants as victims of the armed conflict, has contributed a great deal of content to the virtual museum. Alongside the practical, moral, and cultural support they extended to the Colombian community, many were also instrumental in securing testimony from the UK and Ireland for the Colombian Truth Commission. Mujer Diáspora has also played an important role in trialling and shiowcasing the physical resources of A Museum for Me.
- A Museum for Me materials are available here as free downloads
- A Museum for Me materials can be ordered in bulk and distributed free of charge to community museums, schools and NGOs in Colombia and the UK
