One of KVS's dramaturges, Gerardo Salinas, presents us his artistic practice with its roots in Memoria, verdad y justicia.
Where war rages, where genocide takes place and where human rights are violated in extreme ways, a branch of international law emerges that we call transitional justice. Its aim: the restoration of the rule of law.
Art nourishes our collective memory and forms the foundation of our culture.
In Europe, we are familiar with the Nuremberg Trials, for example. In Argentina, after the civil-military dictatorship of the 1980s, these principles were given a name of their own: Memoria, Verdad y Justicia. Memory, Truth and Justice.
This is about building memory in order to uncover the truth, and then, from that truth, demanding justice.
Dictatorships and genocides are not only violent systems that undermine political, economic and individual freedoms. They also attack the narrative itself, because alongside the bodies, stories are made to disappear.
Words are buried, voices erased. These “narrative operations” influence the way memory is formed. An official story emerges, edited by those who abuse their power. History offers countless examples of this – Congo, Palestine, names that also resonate in Belgium today.
The policy of Memoria, Verdad y Justicia seeks to dismantle these strategies that shape the narrative.
From my artistic practice, I follow these dynamics: first intuitively, later with full awareness. Art nourishes our collective memory and forms the foundation of our culture. It weaves together the story of who we were, who we are, and who we can become.
We search for individual truths in order to collectively build a story that is more honest, more just, more human.
The narrative power of art collides with other edited versions of reality, often enforced through media manipulation, war, invasion, torture and genocide.
Each of us is a potential storyteller and carries fragments of stories within us. But not everyone has learned how to speak. Not everyone is given the space to let their story be heard.
That is why it remains essential for me to feed the collective story with as many voices as possible, and to ignite the narrative fire of our neighbourhood, our city, our country and our humanity.
Theatre is an act of memory. A living rearticulation of reality, created anew at every moment: here, now, with these bodies. Each reinterpretation opens up a new layer.
In 2024, we opened Memoria, Verdad y Justicia as a space for reflection on the place of artistic discourse in times of human rights violations, genocide and war. A place to investigate how stories are reclaimed, and what role the artist plays in this process.
This year, we continue this research. We search for individual truths in order to collectively build a story that is more honest, more just, more human.