Guagua
A Museum for Me workshop, Cali, May 2022 with Fundación Guagua Photo: C.A. Acosta.
May 2022, museum-making in the street at the monthly vigil for the dissapreared (Plantón Mensual en Memoria de los Desaparecidos) that takes place in Cali, organised by Fundación Guagua one of the five Colombian counterparts to A Museum For Me. Families of the dissapeared are joined by local people and students in these public acts of exchange and solidarity.
Read more below.
Tumaco
Entrance to the Casa Museo de la Memoria de Tumaco. Photo: J.Olaya.
La Casa de la Memoria in Tumaco is a local initiative created entirely by volunteers in premises loaned by the diocese. It houses a museum commemorating and honour the lives of victims of the conflict, and a space to bring together, educate and support local young people through creative and social activities, focused on peacebuilding, reconciliation, and personal and collective empowerment. La Casa de la Memoria is one of five community museum ‘hubs’, piloting A Museum For Me materials and activities, and sharing techniques with other grassroots memorial initiatives.
Corporacion Zoscua
Creation by high school student at A Museum for Me Workshop with Corporación Zoscua., May 2022, Bogotá.
Long-term counterpart to @MVRColombia, Corporación Zoscua, leads A Museum For Me workshops in June 2022 with students of health sciences at SENA in Bogota; the students’ creations are then formally exhibited two weeks later at the SENA campus.
‘A Museum of Peace’; (pictured above) made by a 20-year old SENA student, recreates ‘Salón Nunca Más’ (The 'Never Again' Hall) a series of real memorial galleries that appeared across Colombia more than a decade earlier. Created by local communities, they commemorate victims and display images of the disappeared.
Organización Femenina Popular (OFP)
A Museum for Me Workshops at the OFP Museum, April 2022. Barrancabermeja.
The OFP (Organizacion Femenina Popular) is Colombia’s oldest and largest women’s network, working for peace and justice. In Barrancabermeja, the OFP has built and curates Colombia’s first museum dedicated to victims of the armed conflict, and peacebuilders, from a gendered perspective: Casa de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres en el Magdalena Medio.
In April 2022, children and young people gathered at the OFP museum to take a tour of the exhibitions, and participate in A Museum For Me workshops. Using mini-museum kits helps the young people reflect on and express themes that are central to the OFP museum – recording history, articulating memory, honouring the dignity of victims and of peaceful resistance. In Particular, the young people piloted a new product in the ‘A Museum for Me’ product range. This is an activity kit that educates users on the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and encourages them to view and interact with a museum’s content in relation to human rights.
Casa de Memoria y los Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres
@MVRCOlombia has worked with the Organización Femenina Popular in Barrancabermeja since the earliest days of its research. In this video, we see the work of a group of women from the OFP who collaborated with MVR Local Impact Coordinator Patricia Barrera. Women create visual images or cartongrafias that memorialise their selection of objects for the OFP museum, objects of important symbolic meaning to the group, in terms of their collective identity and shared history.
Network of Women Victims and Professionals
A Museum for Me workshop with the Network of Women Victims and Professionals, August 2022.
The Network of Women Victims and Professionals (RMVP - Red de Mujeres Victimas y Profesionales) is a women’s human rights organisation, working for women, children, teenage and male victims of sexual violence in the context of Colombia’s armed conflict and socio-political violence. It supports victims emotionally, legally, and politically by verifying and claiming rights to justice, to reparations, non-repetition of abuses, personal and collective empowerment, and psychosocial support in undertaking prosecutions and dealings with Colombian institutions. Since its creation in 2016, it has established a support network in 9 Colombian regions. As a community partner to @MVRColombia is proud to work with The Network of Women Victims and Professionals in support of their human rights documentation and public representation of gendered forms of violence.
National Rollout
From 2021 onwards A Museum for Me project expanded its remit and began rolling out materials to 21 museums and related organisations across the whole of Colombia, providing tools for working with communities about the meaning of the museum as a space for curating memory, for reflection and dialogue. Participating museums received 200 sets of a mix of 5 different A Museum For Me kits and educational materials, with guides for users and workshop leaders.