- Exhibition program
- Preventive Archaeology
- Author
- Lola Lasurt
- Dates
- —
- Curated by
- Oriol Fontdevila
Commemorative processes are traversed by an inescapable tension. On the one hand, the use of the word “commemoration” reminds us of the attitude we have toward all that is established as important and solemn. On the other, “commemoration” is also the action of remembering together, in community, “com-memorate”. The first meaning shows a hierarchical function of memory that tends toward institutionalization. The second, on the contrary, refers to the horizontality on which collective memory circulates while connected to the heterogeneous nature of the social. To commemorate becomes, therefore, a controversial action, the space where the drive to control memorial narratives and the drive to persistently seek its dissemination across social differences are negotiated.
Double authorization arises from the intersection of two stories. One makes reference to the moves and copies made to a monument dedicated to Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia; the other makes reference to changing the name of a square at Mont-roig del Camp from Generalísimo Franco to Joan Miró. Monuments and squares, most probably, are the two ways that western culture has set aside, par excellence, for commemorative display. In this case, however, Lola Lasurt explores them from the perspective of their unpredictability, focusing on the moment of transit. Thus, we are allowed to perceive how, from the intersection between the impulse to officially sanction memories and the impulse of emergent memories, can surge unexpected commemorative constructions, as well as, debates spurred by their aesthetics, political and social implications
