“As this wave from memories flows in, the city soaks it up like a sponge and expands. A description of Zaira as it is today should contain all Zaira’s past. The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps…” [Calvino (1974). Invisible Cities. p. 9]
In Medellin and Beirut, borders should be regarded as landscapes and not lines. They are defined by different dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, involve diverse actors and are manifest in overlapping spatialities at the same time. Underlying them are trajectories of violence, recovery and a transformation embedded in processes of displacement.
To counteract this, the project aims to create the conditions for the possibility for a landscape of memories to emerge. Memory is a tool for reconciliation and its recollection is the first step to achieve an inclusive transformation that reflects on past and present dynamics; memory is projection. The landscape, then, brings together overlapping perspectives in an iterative process of knowledge creation through the continuous interaction with the territory.
Recollection is spatialized in the form of a living map of memories with three dimensions: recognition, visibility and dissemination. Recognition begins in an ephemeral space that appears for individuals and communities to write their stories through conversations, drawings and texts. These are brought visible in a series of routes that connect emerging places of importance in the narratives of memories; memories are embedded in the territory. This way, the space of recollection dissolves in the daily life of the community. Finally, in a process of translation, memories turn into maps and stories recorded in a book; a tool that allows for the dissemination of histories in other communities.
The three dimensions establish a common language for different communities to tell and listen to their stories; to heal wounds and build bridges. The process starts with a single community in each city (a neighbourhood in Comuna 8 and the fishermen in Dalieh) with the sudden appearance of the space of recognition and the beginning of the story-telling. From there, it acquires the potential to scale up to bring other communities into the process. The overlap of their perspectives would generate a landscape of memories to contribute to a transformation of the current borders in the cities.
