IMAGES OF TRUTH: ART AS A MEDIUM FOR RECOUNTING PERU'S INTERNAL WAR

A woman walks alone, wiping tears from her eyes with one hand. In her other hand, she absentmindedly holds a wool spinner. One of her shoes is broken. Her back is slightly hunched forward, not from the weight of her bag, but from her sadness. This drawing, done in pencil and pastel, is titled "Behind the shadow of pain" ("Tras la sombra del dolor"). Although there are no direct scenes of violence, the pain of this woman and her community is inscribed on her body. Her pain is visible to us; such is the capacity of art to narrate her experience. Art offers a powerful means of non-verbal expression. This article deals with visual arts in the distribution of individual and collective memories of the recent conflict in Peru. Two central premises underlie this research on art in post-Shining Path Peru: first, art acts as a mode of communication, and second, from this communication we can complement our historical understanding of Peru's internal war. This study therefore demands broadening the archives to include other repositories of memory and history, beyond state-produced and written records. This approach is all the more necessary for social groups whose experience may be excluded by written records and for places where the presence of the State is weak, such as the Peruvian highland communities most affected by the violence between 1980 and 1992.