“The walls might be erased but not the history”: Rereadings and Interventions to the MHN of Santiago, Chile; a case study in the framework of the social outburst (October-December 2019)

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the interventions carried out on ten national historical monuments (MHN), part of the historical heritage of Santiago, Chile, in the context of October 2019 social outburst . To do this, from October to December 2019, a weekly photographic record was kept, to characterize the interventions in their material and spatial-contextual dimension. Our research starts from the premise that the MHN are part of an official discourse and represent values that consecrate them as heritage; therefore, the interventions account as a specific use and appropriation of this heritage, allowing us to identify deeper discourses and meanings, with new agents, memories and stories. The interventions of the MHN and their Typical Zones are questioning the official, regulatory and hegemonic narratives, thus positioning the Monuments as disputed spaces, configuring a new way of understanding the present of the MHN and with it, the future of the relationship established between them and those who live in Santiago.