What kinds of collective spaces allow us to approach histories of violence that refuse representation? Can an archive generate affective economies of shared grief? The Silence of the Volcano brings together a group of artists that through their practice respond to an archive rooted in experiences of migration, exile, clandestinity, political resistance, forced disappearance, and genocide during Guatemala’s counterinsurgent war (1954–1996)—one of the longest in Latin America.
Around this time last year, Dr. Ayesha Khan published an article about decolonizing hope that had a profound effect on me. In the text entitled “How do we keep hope alive in our movements?”, Khan discusses the contradictions of hope but mainly the difference between the hopefulness of a freedom fighter and the hopelessness caused by individualism and colonial values in the West.
