Museums and Memories of Repression and Resistance in Belo Horizonte: reflections about the built environment in the production of places of memory

Abstract

It is observed in recent years the emergence of a wide range of projects and memory institutions in the territory of contemporary cities, which aims to meet actions of moral reparation to events that had as its mark, situations of conflict, violence and human rights violations. Recent waves of review and discussion of these events added by the growing phenomenon of patrimonialization have generated new spaces and places of memory, such as those that might be considered related to traumatic memories and suffering: old hospitals, old prisons, tragedy and crime related sites, places related to dictatorial regimes, among others. Through heritage polices new meanings have been attributed to these spaces. As purpose of this research, we aim to investigate how the built environment, the buildings that carry the tracks and traces of the events that had them as stage, can be mobilized in the construction of places of representation that are not only support for memories, but also places that allow us to discuss these memories? To this end we selected three projects and spaces that are under implementation in the city of Belo Horizonte, which are intended as places of preservation of memories related to events and episodes of violation of human rights. They are: Memorial da Anistia, Memorial dos Direitos Humanos and Espaço Comum Luiz Estrela. Our objective is to discuss those selected case studies and others already consolidated memorials that are related to traumatic memories, and how them allow us to glimpse the mobilization of the built environment in the production of memory sites, especially those engendered by the heritage discourse.