28 de March de 2025
LACTUALIDAD #5 LACtualidad, Noticia
March 2025
Editorial
Statues that rise, fall, are relocated, resist or cease to exist in the memory of peoples. These profoundly monumental and imposing objects are part of public life, occupying a space that, in principle, symbolically belongs to us all. However, struggles over memory, the political power’s obsession with hegemonic ideas, and arbitrary decisions about who has the right to speak for others are materialised in the actions and interventions imposed on these inanimate objects, which only come to life when someone looks at them with admiration, fear or curiosity, or when their integrity is called into question during one protest or another.
Statues are objects that reveal the deepest passions and decisions—often arbitrary—that a society takes in order to represent values about what it wants to be or aspires to be. They speak in a partial way about events of the past, attempting to impose particular visions within everyday public space. That is why they may be placed on their pedestal one day and abruptly toppled the next, in an unfinished struggle over who holds symbolic power over others.
In this issue of LACTUALIDAD (No. 5), we bring you news from all corners of the region that illustrates this constant symbolic struggle playing out in our public spaces. Some cases are more acute than others, but all clearly show how cultural heritage, materialised in statues, constitutes a symbolic and political site that stirs the most complex fibres of each society. Museums have much to say and contribute within this endless “dance of statues”, as they remain places where deep critical reflections can take place—going beyond the anecdotal fact of a statue’s fall, for example—to examine, within the exhibition space, the trajectories and vicissitudes of these objects and the reasons behind the human actions we instigate upon them. We hope that this issue of LACTUALIDAD serves as a pedestal for the monumental thinking that our museums can offer about these objects.
COLOMBIA
Colombia bids a silent farewell to Rozo’s Bachué, a misunderstood artistic treasure
@elpaisamericacolombia
Full article:
HAITI
Battered statue bears witness to Haiti’s tragedy, resilience and flickering hope
@guardian
Full article:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/12/haiti-statute-neg-mawon
ARGENTINA
After full restoration, the statue of Sarmiento returned to the Birthplace Museum
@diariohuarpecom
Full article:
BRAZIL
Corcovado under dispute: bills seek to remove the area from Tijuca National Park and transfer it to the Church
@siteoeco
Full article:
CHILE
Controversy in the Senate over the proposed monument to Sebastián Piñera: the forceful reaction of Fabiola Campillai
@elclarin.cl
Full article:
PERÚ
From “father of Peru” to “usurper and murderer”: the statue of Francisco Pizarro returns to central Lima
@elpaisamerica
Full article:
Note: The opinions and ideas expressed in each of these news items are the sole responsibility of the media outlets that edited and published them and do not in any way reflect the opinions, policies or institutional positions of ICOM or its Regional Alliance for Latin America and the Caribbean. Our digital publication aims to broaden the circulation of ideas and debates surrounding what is happening in museums across our region. Readers are encouraged to explore the topics further and to foster a broad, critical and respectful conversation, helping to ensure that our information channels are also safe spaces for exchange.
* Translated into English with the support of artificial intelligence.