“MNEMONIC FLICKERINGS: THE DISAPPEARANCES AND REAPPEARANCES OF THE MEMORY OF MEXICO’S DISAPPEARED”

Official registries by the National Search Commission report 113,147 disappeared persons in Mexico, a figure disputed by both civil society organizations and the Mexican presidency, the latter of which claims the number is overshot. Documenting Mexico’s disappeared requires navigating the paradox of institutionally registering absence through the presence of memory of the disappeared’s kin manifested through legal procedures, search efforts and protest. As the Mexican federal government improvises an illegal census with an unknown methodology to downplay numbers, a form of inverted surveillance emerges where absence of data is weaponized against memory. Whose remembrance, then, counts? How do sociotechnical practices of memory and memorialization legitimize representation? Sergio Beltrán-García, drawing from experiences learned at Forensic Architecture where counter-investigations challenge states’ monopolies on the means of truth production, will present how El Bosque de la Esperanza restitutes means for the production of memory data of Mexico’s disappeared to families who search for their loved ones.

View biography on ssbeltran.com