Jaquear el archivo. Reflexiones a propósito del proyecto Inakayal vuelve. Bordar el genocidio mapuche

Abstract

Over the past few decades, contemporary art has shown a growing tendency to use archival material as a source for the production of aesthetic experiences -a phenomenon that is expressed through a plurality of poetic operations that explore modes of appropriation and re-signification of documents from diverse origins. Considering this phenomenon, this article examines the dynamics at play in Inakayal Vuelve. Bordar el genocidio Mapuche (“Inakayal Returns. Embroidering the Mapuche Genocide”), an artistic project by Argentine artist Sebastián Hacher that resignifies a corpus of photographs belonging to the photographic archive of the Museum of Natural Sciences of La Plata, taken in the 19th century within the context of the military campaign over the Patagonian territory known as the “Conquest of the Desert.” We propose that, through specific dynamics characteristic of contemporary art, Hacher reclaims these photographs not only to observe their visible aspect -that consolidated by the official narrative- but also to probe the traces of what has been silenced: the spectral records of the hidden side of the National State’s so-called civilizing enterprise, thereby bringing latent pasts to the surface.