Art
Community Murals
The Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador team supports the creation of community murals, as well as the restoration of aging historic murals. Murals are an important way to promote intergenerational education and share the team’s research about historical memory with a broad audience. For most projects, the team collaborates closely with Colectivo Matiz, a youth artist cooperative in Chalatenango.
Ceramics
From 2018 to 2022, Salvadoran artist and University of El Salvador (UES) art professor, Lourdes Calero, led the collaborative, educational, socially-conscious community art project: “Cooperación técnica en la confección de placas cerámicas para el proyecto de diseño y construcción del Memorial de la Masacre del río Sumpul, Chalatenango” [Technical Cooperation in the Making of Ceramic Plaques for the Design and Construction Project of the Sumpul River Massacre Memorial, Chalatenango]. Developed within the framework of the Sumpul River Massacre Memorial, the 600 plaques represent the 600 victims of the massacre. The plaques were installed by survivors, art students from UES, community leaders, local youth, architects, professors, and graduate students from KU Leuven and Western University.
Embroidery
The embroidery workshop arose when Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen [Museum of the Word and Image] set out to locate the refugee embroiderers from Mesa Grande refugee camps in Honduras during the armed conflict of the 1980s. Most of them were originally from Chalatenango and Cabañas, and in 2022, the museum explored the history of embroidery in the communities of Arcatao, Nueva Trinidad, San José Las Flores, Ignacio Ellacuría, Guarjila, San Antonio Los Ranchos, La Ceiba, and Las Vueltas.
Sculpture
Oscar Arnulfo Romero was a religious leader assassinated by the Salvadoran Armed Forces in March 1980 while giving mass. Although no one was convicted of the murder, the UN Truth Commission attributed the death to the Salvadoran Armed Forces death squad leader, Major Roberto D’Aubuisson. The sculpture of Romero is located at the site of the Sumpul River Massacre in Las Aradas, in Ojos de Agua, Chalatenango department, El Salvador. It is part of the memorial created at the site under the auspices of the Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador project. The sculpture measures 170 centimeters, and it is made in the polychrome resin technique. It was a collaboration with the students of the Sculpture Option of the School of Arts of the University of El Salvador, coordinated by the sculptor and professor Miguel Mira, in 2021.