(Im)Permanence: Memory and Forgetting in the Public Space

Abstract

This text deals with the permanence and destruction of monuments in order to discuss their role in the construction and reinvention of territorialities and identities. In Brazil, the debate on the permanence and coloniality of monuments is incipient, sometimes non-existent. In Salvador, Brazil’s first capital, monuments are part of the urban landscape, but in most situations, they don’t play a direct role in everyday life. In general, it is clear that commemorative monuments do not have the same values and meanings as they did in the past, when they are not completely forgotten. In the absence of the cultivation of memory and of a debate on the social function of the works, the relationship with the monuments is often mediated by various levels of apathy, ignorance and authoritarianism on the part of the state. The article seeks to analyze the transformations in the relationship with monuments in a disputed public space, highlighting the shifts in meaning and the (im)permanence of natural and historical monuments.