Hearths of Memory: Cartography for Re-Existence

HEARTHS OF MEMORY:

CARTOGRAPHY FOR RE-EXISTENCE

Los Fogones de la Memoria (Hearths of Memory) is a collective memory and peacebuilding process led by Corporación Cartografía Sur, the Centro de Promoción y Cultura, the Centro de Memoria Paz y Reconciliación, and FOKUS in the neighborhoods of Santa Fe, Usme, and Kennedy in the city of Bogotá.

TEXT AND PHOTO: FOKUS – COLOMBIAN OFFICE

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hroughout 2021 and the first half of 2022, Centro de Promoción y Cultura, la Corporación Cartografía Sur, el Centro de Memoria Paz y Reconciliación, and FOKUS have collaborated on a project called Los Fogones de la Memoria (Hearths of Memory) in three neighborhoods in Bogotá: Santa Fe, Usme, and Kennedy. This has been possible thanks to alliances with local organizations. In Santa Fe the project received support from la Asociación Mujeres y Madres Abriendo Caminos; in Usme from Círculos de Paz; and in Kennedy from the Centro de Promoción y Cultura. This process, which has revolved around memory and the cartography of re-existence, has had been meaningful for those who believe that peace is built at the territorial and local level, and that Bogotá must also be a territory of peace.

Collective analysis of this process has enabled us to identify how relevant it has been for those involved in this work. Cartografía Sur describes it as “an opportunity to deepen our understanding of the organizational processes and work for resistance and re-existence that are present in each one of the territories.” For the Centro de Promoción y Cultura, “the exercise of building memory has allowed us to recognize ourselves as builders of territories and this is a contribution that we make to building peace in the city.” For CMPR, “measurements of peacebuilding in the city are made not only with direct victims of the conflict but also through women and their organizational processes,” while for FOKUS it has represented “an opportunity to continue pushing for Bogotá to be recognized as a peace territory, bring attention to strategies for re-existence, and connecting organizational, institutional, and international processes.”

Installing a “Hearth of Memory,” which draws on the magic of fire and what the hearth space has meant for women and communities in re-existence, is a symbolic act with a highly political character.

The act of accompanying these hearths with Círculos de Paz, making storytelling an exercise that connects communities and which is done not with women from outside the community but with young women who have made the word into a powerful and respectful tool that is both playful and political, in language that connects them with their peers, has been another demonstration of the power of language and of art as paths toward building memory and peace.

We also share the emotions that the counter map awoke in each community; that printed artefact, fruit of collective labor, that, thanks to the illustrator’s magic, managed to represent the way in which women and local organizations live, exist, and re-exist at the local level, which is reflected in comments such as these: Cartografía Sur emphasizes that “the act of seeing

Cover: Presentation of the Hearth of Memory and the Counter Map to the locality of Usme, Bogotá.

themselves represented in a country where the representation of working class areas is not very common, generated an effect of recognition” that broke with the hegemonic logic of the property tax maps and shows the richness of maps created by the

The Hearths of Memory are “an opportunity to deepen people who reside in the territories depicted. For CPC, it means “mobilizour understanding of the ing the people through organizational processes a different strategy […] it means putting on the and work for resistance counter-map what has and re-existence that are hegemonically not existed there before.” For present in each one of the CMPR, “these maps are territories.” Cartografía Sur magic, they are a-geographic and atemporal.” For FOKUS, “the counter-map is a pedagogical proposal that is does not subscribe to hegemonic pedagogies.” This exercise, carried out in the context of a new administration that is supporting Total Peace, is another example of how women’s organizations and neighborhood processes are building memory and peace processes that must be recognized and strengthened, not co-opted.

We will continue to strengthen territorial peace through alliances and collaboration with other organizations, working with women’s organizations that are building memory and peace, confident that the hearth and the counter-map are powerful exercises that connect us to the warmth of fire, of the collective, and of the beauty of illustrating—and representing ourselves—with a broad palette of colors that reflect the diversity of the neighborhood and the way the community sees itself. FM

María de Jesús Cárdenas Sandoval, Centro de Promoción y Cultura CPC. Presentation of the Hearth of Memory and the Counter Map to the locality of Santa Fe, Bogotá, 2022.