Remembering Those Who Have Passed

I just finished my master’s thesis on the ways the idea of “security” has been “constructed” about violence-torn Colombia. Like all such large and worthwhile projects I ended up at a very different place from where I expected to be when I started. One example: I had a very moving experience while doing my research. Amid a recent exhibition in New York City about art honoring Latin America’s “Los Desaparecidos,” or “Disappeared” I found a simple display by Oscar Munoz, one of the Colombian artists I quoted in my thesis.

Munoz’s "Proyecto para un monumento" (Project for a Memorial), 2005, addresses the difficulty of remembering the dead in a society of “silences.” In five synchronized videos, the artist draws portraits of those who died in "La Violencia" – the mid-century period when as many as 300,000 (!!!) Colombians died in political violence. In the videos, Munoz draws faces on stones using water, meaning the images are constantly disappearing. Munoz is poignantly addressing the problem of memorializing those who have perished and are at risk of being forgotten.

Of course Munoz is speaking of a very tragic and specific time and place – but having lost my brother, Matt, nearly two years ago to a decade-long battle with alcoholism, something about Munoz’s exhibit touched me and pulled me in, as if to say: “Don’t let your brother be a figure whose image disappears, like water on a stone. Don’t forget Matt!” Now, my brother was as far away from the world of Latin American politics and history as you could possibly get -- though the thesis DID contain quite a bit about art and film, two of Matt's passions. No matter. “Inner connections” and discoveries like these are important and should be honored. So here, in a very small way, I honor my dear, sometimes maddening but also often funny and always beloved late brother, Matthew K. Herlinger, shown here in the last photo of us together during Christmas 2004.