Auras anónimas: A Place for Debate on the Memories of Violence in Colombia

Abstract

The work Auras anónimas is an intervention that the Colombian artist
Beatriz González made in a sector of funeral galleries – columbariums –
of the Central Cemetery of Bogotá, as a strategy to avoid its demolition.
This text recounts the creation of the work and its evolution until 2018,
when the protection status of the area was modified to give another use
to the space, which implied the disappearance of the work. A reflection
on the meanings of the permanent and the ephemeral in artistic production in public space is raised here, as well as the importance of the public debate on memory that Auras anónimas has contributed to sustain in its contingency.