Description
While sexual violence holds a strong presence in public memory in many parts of the world –represented in countless works of art, literature, and film – it has until recently been remarkably absent from the public memorials installed around the world for the specific purpose of commemorating violent events. Since 2010, however, this picture has begun to change, and memorials commemorating sexual violence across both war and peace can now be found in multiple countries worldwide, including South Korea, Mexico, the USA, Canada, Bangladesh, Kosovo, Australia, Hungary, Germany, Japan, China, the UK, South Africa, and Italy. Scholars and activists alike have celebrated this mnemonic proliferation as a moment of “silence breaking,” in which sexual violence, previously made invisible, is claiming the public space that it warrants. This paper begins to unpack this idea of silence breaking by paying careful attention to the messages that a sample of these memorials communicate through their visual language. Specifically, I focus on what kinds of sexual violence are represented and how; on what kinds of victims and perpetrators appear; and on what new silences are created in these storytelling moves. I also reflect on the political avenues that are opened and foreclosed by these storytelling choices.
