Resignification, recontextualisation and reclamation of colonial landscape memorials in the Latin American context

Abstract

Recent reactions to colonial-era memorials have contributed to a renewal of interest in memorialisation as a focal point for social justice and equity. In the Latin American context, colonial memorials are visual links that are deeply-rooted elements of the region’s identity. This paper focuses on three landscape memorial sites in Latin America as carriers of meaning. The first case study is the Equestrian Sebastian de Belalcázar memorial space in Popayán, Colombia. The monument of this Spanish conqueror was placed on Morro de Tulcán, a sacred site for the Pubenenses tribe. The colonial narrative, in this case, is one of oppression in which Spanish heritage is favoured over indigenous culture. The second case study is the Isabella La Catolica monument in La Paz, Bolivia. This statue was initially established to be a paradigmatic model of European women, beauty and virtue, but it has become a symbol of discrimination against native women. The third case is the equestrian monument of 19th-century war Chilean hero and politician General Manuel Jesús Baquedano González. Located in Santiago de Chile, this figure was seen by many as a symbol of how the Chilean elite repressed indigenous people. Each of the three statues has experienced a range of reactions that reveal counter-narratives to those imposed by the insertion of the colonial figures into the landscape. The responses include removal, dressing and graffiti; we classify these interventions as reclamation, resignification and recontextualisation. Walter Hood (2019) argues, “landscape is the last democratic space we have, and we need to fill it with diverse voices.”