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ESMA, an infamous center for torture and extermination, now houses a memorial museum. It first opened in 2007 and was subsequently rethought and remodeled. Museological interventions modified the museum script and the visits' format. This article explores the (re)construction of memories through the communication process between the site and its visitors. It asks: What are the differences between the previous space and the modified one? How do changes affect interactions between visitors and the space? I review the authorial intentions of curators and public responses to the space to trace the evolving debate over what the museum's script should include/exclude, changes in official memorialization policies and the perceived impact of the space of memory/museum on visitors.
Keywords: Argentina; state terrorism; human rights; memorial museums; museum visitors
INTRODUCTION
ESMA (Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada [Navy School of Mechanics]) was an infamous center for torture and extermination during the last Argentine dictatorship (1976-83), a regime under which an estimated thirty thousand people were disappeared. Quintessential lieu de mémoire, it stands in the memory landscape of Buenos Aires as an obstinate reminder of mass human rights violations. Fewer than two hundred of the approximately five thousand people taken to ESMA survived. The building now houses a memorial site/museum in the space that was once the headquarters of the dictatorship's brutal repression: the Casino de Oficiales (Officers' Club Building). The Space for Memory at the Casino first opened to the general public in 2007 but it was subsequently rethought and remodeled. After closing for remodeling in October 2014, it reopened in May 2015 as the space now called Museo Sitio de Memoria ESMA (ESMA Site of Memory Museum). In addition to changes in the physical space, museological interventions changed the script of the museum's narrative and the visitors' experience of the museum.
This article explores ESMA's role in the transmission and (reconstruction of collective memory through the process of communication that occurs between the site and its visitors. Simple questions guide my inquiry: What are the differences between the first Space for Memory and the modified museum? What goals motivated the modifications? How did people interact with the original Space for Memory? How do the changes affect interactions between the visitors and the space? What potential impact...