Parque de la Memoria, Buenos Aires

Nunca más. These are the first words of a famous legal document detailing the abuses of the military dictatorship during the 'Dirty War'. They now form the well-known slogan associated with the end of the dictatorship and all its atrocities. Short, effective, powerful.

The other day, we visited the Parque de la Memoria out near Costanera for the first time. A zig-zag of granite walls surround the park, and on closer inspection each long brick has a name written on it. A name of a Desaparecido. It is estimated there were 300,000 disappeared. The wall seems to go on and on and on. Its location by the river and the university is significant. Most of the disappeared were in fact young students, and their bodies were dumped in the Rio Plata from planes that crossed the river for this sole purpose.

Walking through the park, alongside the walls is an emotional experience. Stark grey granite bricks seem appropriately sombre. So many names, and most of them so young. I spotted a 15 year old boy amongst the list. (But not the youngest to be taken - I’ve read an account of a 12 year old tortured in one of the concentration camps). So many young people cheated of their lives, of their future. And so many parents and grandparents robbed of their families. And for what?

Scattered around the park are very moving sculptures dedicated to the disappeared. I have two favourites: Claudia Fontes’ stainless steel life-size sculpture of Pablo Miguez, a fourteen year old boy who was amongst the kidnapped, tortured and disappeared. He is actually in the river looking out to sea, back towards the park, as if to warn people coming to Buenos Aires to remember him, to remember the disappeared, to remember Argentina’s bloody (and fairly recent) history.

Another harrowing piece of artwork entitled “30,000” (the estimated number of disappeared) consists of 25 long pillars, which when viewed from a certain angle, form a picture of artist Guagnini’s father (another Desaparecido). Move from this viewpoint, and the image disappears. In art as in life, Guagnini’s father is there no more.

Nunca más.

http://www.parquedelamemoria.org.ar