MEMORY: DEMOCRACY, FEMINISM, LABOUR. Workshops
These workshops accompany the exhibition Mar Caldas: Women, Work and Memory. Through weekly gatherings throughout March and April, our goal is to reflect on the thematic axes of the exhibition from a feminist perspective.
The programme begins with the notion of post-memory and its capacity, through cultural production, to interweave traumatic family histories with the history of an entire country. We believe this is a useful concept for our context, where memories of the 1936 military coup have frequently been kept alive through several generations, to the extent that the official memory is bent on silencing and burying them, as though our present were not fraught with a painful past.
How can we restore the living memory of places of violence? How are traumatic memories passed down from one generation to another? What role do pictures play in transmitting them? What can we extract from the objects, as powerful as they are fragile, that have remained? What can be done with these remnants, how can we trace them, how can we communicate these findings?
The memory of female labour is another thread to follow that is entangled with the previous one. The sexual division of work became clearly visible during Franco's regime with the confinement of women to the home, either through labour legislation or as a result of persistent sexist indoctrination. How does the division between production work and reproduction work persist in the present-day economy? How does this develop in the rural environment? Are the feminised jobs of caring for others and maintaining the household equivalent to other tasks such as safeguarding memory and preserving the family legacy?
Making sure the thread of the memory doesn’t break—or rather, it gets thicker, stronger—is the job of women who tell stories and treasure objects in the family environment; of members of civil society who form associations oblivion; of political organisations that fight for a democratic, feminist memory; of researchers in the fields of history, the economy, journalism, archaeology, anthropology, the arts... who weave memory with their tools.
These voices that mediate with personal, collective, cultural, labour and political memories are the ones we want to bring together in this discussion forum, where everyone is welcome.
PROGRAMME
BLOCK I. THE TRANSMISSION OF DEMOCRATIC MEMORY
12 MARCH. POST-MEMORY AND VISUAL CULTURE
6.30 p.m.
Verónica Estay Stange. The Concept of Post-Memory and its Presence in Visual Culture
8.00 p.m.
Screening of the film 12 de maio de 1937 (Mar Caldas, 2023) and subsequent colloquium
19 MARCH.THE PUBLIC TRANSMISSION OF MEMORY
6.30 p.m.
Maribel Rams. Post-Memory Film Creation
David Barreiro. ‘Objects of Memory’ in the Present-Day Archaeology
X. Enrique Acuña. Objects of Memory in the Exhibition System
26 MARCH. THE TRANSMISSION OF MEMORY WITHIN THE FAMILY
6.30 p.m.
Jorge Moreno Andrés. Family Photos of the Victims of the Franco Era
María Rosón. The Family Album as a Portrait
8.00 p.m.
Screening of film 12 de maio de 1937 (Mar Caldas, 2023) and subsequent colloquium
2 APRIL. ACTIONS FOR THE TRANSMISSION OF DEMOCRATIC MEMORY IN GALICIA: PLACES, NAMES AND TESTIMONIES
6.30 p.m.
Telmo Comesaña. Marking Places of Memory
Montse Fajardo Pérez. Recovery of the Memory of Women
Aldara Cidrás. The Archives of Democratic Memory
BLOCK II. MEMORY OF WOMEN’S LABOUR
9 APRIL
6.30 p.m.
Mary Nash. The World of Women's Labour Under the Franco Era. Myths and realities
10 APRIL. PRESENT DAY ECONOMIC POLICIES AND THE RURAL WORLD
6.30 p.m.
Lidia Senra. Work Situation of Women in Rural Galicia
Carmen Castro. Gender Perspective in the Present Day Economy
VIDEOS
BLOCK I
Verónica Estay Stange. The Concept of Post-Memory and its Presence in Visual Culture
BLOCK II
Mary Nash. The World of Women's Labour Under the Franco Era. Myths and realities