Library of Rassegna iberistica

Series | Library of Rassegna iberistica
Edited book | Narratives of Violence
Chapter | Personal Remembrance as Historical Memory

Personal Remembrance as Historical Memory

Eva Koch’s Interactive Visual Work on Her Mother’s Experience of the Spanish Civil War

Abstract

This essay explores the Danish sculptor and video-installation artist Eva Koch’s interactive visual works from 2001 based on her mother’s, and her mother’s family’s, experiences during the Spanish Civil War: Villar and Villar – Los hijos de Manuela. These works are a textualization of the past through remembrance in which no attempt is made to offer a linear account of events or play down uncomfortable sub-narratives. The analysis, which exposes the precarious boundaries between the personal and the collective, draws from theoretical approaches to memory and history by Marianne Hirsch, Walter Benjamin, Jay Winter and Maurice Halbwachs.


Open access | Peer reviewed

Submitted: April 1, 2021 | Accepted: June 8, 2021 | Published Oct. 21, 2021 | Language: en

Keywords Walter BenjaminVillar - Los hijos de ManuelaVillarMarianne HirschMaurice HalbwachsNini Haslund GleditschJay WinterInteractive visual artEva KochSpanish Civil WarOliva and Norwegian humanitarian aid


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