Making the Past Perceptible: Reflections on the Temporal and Visual Enframings of Violence in the Museum of Memory in Uruguay

The "museums of memory" (museos de la memoria) have become ambiguous and conflictive sites that articulate the demand for remembrance and oblivion as regards the recent past of state authoritarianism and dictatorships in Latin America. This article seeks to disentangle ways of reading one of these spaces of memory, the Museo de la Memoria in Montevideo, Uruguay, paying special attention to a particular exhibition wing entitled The Prisons and to a temporary art installation by Daniel Jorysz, entitled Ver ... dad, exhibited in an open space adjacent to the museum from September to November 2010. Analyzing the museum collection and establishing a counterpoint with the art installation, the article searches for the ways in which (hi) stories are made perceptible within these practices both on the inside and outside, and expose the conflicts that arise in the process.