Lurdes Valls-Crespo
UN SDGs
20px;">Cartographies of Transitional Memory: A Philosophical Approach to Museal Perpetrator RepresentationFaculty o Arts
Post Bellum
This project explores how perpetrators of political violence are represented in museums and memory institutions in Germany, Spain, and the Czech Republic. By adopting a comparative perspective, it aims to map how different transitional justice processes—and their corresponding cultural frameworks—inform public narratives of violence, justice, and democratic values. These contrasting trajectories provide a critical lens through which to examine how museums and memory institutions mediate the legacies of political violence. Adopting an interdisciplinary methodology, the project brings together philosophical reflection, curatorial analysis, and educational research. From an ethical-aesthetic perspective, it examines how exhibitions construct meaning through spatial, visual, and discursive strategies, and how morally complex figures—such as perpetrators, collaborators or bystanders—are made visible or remain excluded from public memory narratives. It also explores how these representations intersect with educational practices and democratic pedagogy, shaping civic understandings of violence, responsibility, and complicity. Combining theoretical inquiry with empirical fieldwork, the project includes site visits, analysis of exhibition spaces, interviews, and co- creative activities with teachers and curators. A central component is the secondment at Post Bellum, where transnational working groups will develop pedagogical tools and strengthen the organization’s international outreach. Outputs include academic publications, a methodological handbook, a podcast series, and an audiovisual glossary. The project will culminate in an international seminar that brings together researchers and memory professionals to reflect on the curatorial and ethical challenges of exhibiting perpetration. By bridging academic analysis and public humanities, it contributes to broader debates on justice, historical responsibility, and the democratic role of memory institutions. ****************************************************************************************** * Meet the Project ****************************************************************************************** If you had to explain your project to someone outside your field, how would you describe i sentences? My project looks at how museums and memory spaces address political violence as a process, perpetrators and other socially and morally complex figures, rather than only on victims o comparing Germany, Spain, and the Czech Republic, I explore how different democratic trans societies are willing to show, explain, or leave unspoken about past violence. Museums are where history is displayed, but spaces where violence, responsibility, and democratic valu through forms, narratives, and public reflection. What fascinates you most about the topic of your research project? I am fascinated by the uneasy space that perpetrators occupy in public memory: they are ce understanding violence, yet often difficult to represent without simplifying, justifying, them. Museums and memory spaces make these tensions visible in subtle ways—through the for languages, and narratives they employ, as well as through what is shown, how it is framed, absent. Studying these choices reveals how societies negotiate moral responsibility and ho invited to reflect on their own position in relation to past violence. How does your research contribute specifically to achieving the UN Sustainable Development My research contributes first to SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions) by suppo accountable ways of addressing legacies of political violence in the public sphere—especia memory institutions that shape how responsibility, complicity, and democratic norms are di supports SDG 4 (Quality Education) by co-developing open, practical resources with teacher museum guides/educators, and artists, helping translate difficult histories into reflectiv experiences for diverse audiences. It also supports SDG 4 (Quality Education) through the of open, practical resources with teachers, curators, museum guides/educators, and artists difficult histories into reflective learning experiences for diverse audiences.
N.B. Funded by the European Union. Views and o are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the Europe European Research Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority responsible for them.