Ett levande monument - Verkstad för textilt handarbete i Santiago, Chile

Sammanfattning: This project aims to propose an alternative memory architecture that allows space for a society to process and heal after having experienced collective trauma. The project site and setting is my mother’s home country Chile where the military coup in 1973 and the following dictatorship is still a source of grief and conflict. The point of departure for the project is the concept of architecture as carrier of collective memories. In a discussion separating monuments from relics I argue that monuments can be problematic in that they are created by someone and therefore offer a set view of history while relics on the other hand are unbiased and open for interpretation. Centering the project around the concept of “doing” I chose to designa workshop for textile craft in Santiago, Chile. The program of the workshop is inspired by an activist movement that developed during the dictatorship known as the arpillera movement. The movement consisted of groups of women whose family members had disappeared or been murdered by the regime. To process their grief as well as to earn a living they produces textile collages depicting their lives and the crimes of the regime. Using the concepts of imagined communities, becoming-subject and resilient subjects I describe how the arpillera movement, by focusing on the idea of “doing”, gave their members an opportunity to develop and grow into a resistance and how their work acts as a testimony and a keeper of their societies collective memories. Allowing the concept of “doing” to take on the role of a relic, the architecture of the building was no longer bound by any need of monumental expression and could instead become a manifestation of the activity it provided space for. By using needlework as a sketch method in my design process I was able to translate and integrate textile concepts and themes into my architectural design. A building that is open and still intimate provides space and peace for a community to meet, exchange experiences and be creative together. Creating memory architecture that focuses on what people are ”doing” allows the memories to live on and the society to develop with them.