A poignant memorial to the victims of Colombia’s ongoing, armed conflict, the images in MEMENTO MORI: Testament to Life are at once majestic, accessible, and deeply moving.  The book consists of three bodies of work: Drifting Away, images of articles of clothing of “the disappeared,” photographed in water and embedded in glass; Sudarios or Shrouds, photographs printed on linen of women who have witnessed atrocities committed against their loved ones; and Relicarios, three-dimensional works of polymer containing mementos and personal effects of the victims.

Accompanied by hauntingly beautiful images of the work at exhibitions and in memorials in areas where the victims were “disappeared,” as well as by essays exploring its social and political implications, this book is a significant resource in contemporary Latin American studies, as well as for social anthropologists, human rights workers, and those wanting to understand at a very basic level the human cost of terrorism.

Erika Diettes is a Colombian visual artist and social anthropologist who explores issues of memory, pain, absence and death in a variety of mediums. Her work has been exhibited in unique spaces linked to re-memoration processes developed by the victims’ movements in Colombia, as well as at other venues including the Museums of Modern Art of Bogotá, Cali, Medellín, and Barranquilla in Colombia; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Santiago de Chile, at the Museum of Fine Arts and the Fotofest Biennal in Houston, the Festival de la Luz in Buenos Aires, the Ballarat Foto Biennale in Australia, the Malta Festival in Poznań, Poland, and at CENTER in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Her work is part of the permanent collection of the Museo de Antioquia (Colombia) and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.

Anne Wilkes Tucker was the Gus and Lyndall Wortham Curator of Photography of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston from 1976, when she founded the department, until her retirement in June 2015.  While at MFAH she organized or co-organized more than forty exhibitions, including retrospectives on Brassaï, Louis Faurer, Robert Frank, George Krause, Ray K. Metzker, Richard Misrach and, most recently “WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY:  Images of Armed Conflict and its Aftermath,” and expanded the museum’s photographic holdings from 141 images to more than 29,000, representing work by some 4,000 artists from all seven continents. In 2001, she was named America’s best curator by TIME magazine.

Ileana Diéguez, PhD is a research professor in the Humanities and Social Sciences Department at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM) in Mexico City, where she works on issues of modern and performing arts, as well as the processes pertaining to performativity and disassembly. She has curated exhibitions on these themes in Mexico and South America, and is the author of several books including Cuerpos sin duelo. Iconografías y teatralidades del dolor/Bodies Without Mourning. Iconographies and Theatricalities of Pain (Document A, 2013), and Escenarios Liminales. Teatralidades, performances y política/Liminal Stages/Scenarios. Theatricalities, Performances and Politics (Atuel 2011).

“Para todos aquellos que hemos trabajado con las violencias latinoamericanas, a veces es difícil saber qué es lo que aún puede conmover a la gente cuando la omnipresencia cotidiana del sufrimiento se ha convertido en un telón de fondo de la vida. Estas fotografías demuestran el poder que la imagen tiene de alcanzarnos y perturbarnos. La desaparición es una forma particular de tortura diaria para sus víctimas, claro, pero especialmente para los seres amados. Su práctica sistemática en América Latina, especialmente en Colombia, evidencia la crueldad de la política somática en la región. Sin cuerpo no hay crimen. Sin cuerpo, la pena esta teñida de esperanza. Estas fotografías comunican esa angustia al enfocarse  en tres dimensiones de lo que queda y lo que recuerda cuando un cuerpo amado, se ha convertido en ningún cuerpo.”

"For those of us who have worked with Latin American violences, it is sometimes difficult to know what can still touch people when the everyday pervasiveness of suffering has become a backcloth to life. These photographs show the power of the image to reach and disturb us. Disappearance is a special form of daily torture, for its victims, of course, but especially for those who love them. Its systematic practice in Latin America, and in particular Colombia, highlights the cruelty of somatic politics in the region. With no body, there is no crime. With no body, the grief is tinged with hope. These photographs communicate this anguish, by focussing on three dimensions of what remains and reminds when a loved some body has become no body."

“Me fascina – es tan ingenioso ordenar los objetos de la memoria en volúmenes separados, cada una en el suyo; un santuario encuadernado … a su lado, las fotos del montaje, que son imponentes. El producto, es un conjunto de obras tan poderoso y que satisface múltiples objetivos: un recordatorio de acontecimientos que no deben ser olvidados, una conexión con los desconsolados, una declaración política, y una expresión artística … El ensayo de Ileana Diéguez es precioso … Veo el dolor en sus caras y es vigente. El sufrimiento fue ocasionado hace años, pero permanece. Comparto el mundo con gente que padece, y para mi, no se trata de la memoria, se trata de hoy, de este momento. Los objetos que alguna vez pertenecieron a alguien más hoy pertenecen a sus familias y aún están impregnados de poder. Siento que al mirar estos objetos es como tocar un cable eléctrico – la fuente está distante, pero la descarga está aquí.”

“I love it - it’s so smart to separate the objects of memory into their own volume, a hardbound sanctuary … next to it the installation pictures, which are breathtaking . Altogether it’s such a powerful body of work that serves many purposes: a reminder of events that should not be forgotten, a connection with the bereaved, a political statement, and artistic expression… Ileana Diéguez’ essay is beautiful … I see the grief on the faces and it’s current. The pain was inflicted years ago but it lasts. I am sharing the world with people who are suffering, and to me this isn’t about memory it’s about today. The objects once belonged to someone else and now they belong to the relatives and they are still imbued with power. I find looking at these objects is like touching an electric cable - the source is distant but the shock is here.”