Katie FitzGibbons

10 December, 2021

Colombia, The FARC, Memory Making, and Murals

A. Introduction

Columbia has suffered unrest for most of its history, which has impacted the communities

all throughout Colombia, causing trauma and suffering for much of the public. I will start my

discussion of Colombian unrest in the early twentieth century with the governmental divide

between the Liberals and the Conservatives called the La Violencia. This governmental divide

will directly lead to the emergence of multiple guerrilla groups, including the Fuerzas Armadas

Revolucionarias Colombianas (The Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia or FARC), who

will oppose the government and the military. Out of this arose many drug trafficking groups,

anti-drug policies, and the paramilitary. Unsteady peace negotiations have been happening since

1998 and are still happening to this day. All of this conflict has directly affected the public,

causing much suffering and trauma. In response to this trauma, much of the public and some of

the revolutionaries have turned to the act of mural making to express their opinions. In

Columbia, during and after the conflict, murals and public art harnessed the power of memory to

either contribute to or combat silences of the victims of the conflict, and seek to find justice and

accountability where injustices have stricken the communities. In this paper, I will explain the

various ways in which these murals are utilized to affect this collective memory and fight against

invisibilities that face many marginalized groups. 

B. The History of Resistance in Colombia

In the early twentieth century, fierce battles, associated with extreme cruelty, commenced

in Colombia. Peasants, in need of land, and reformists in the country allied together in opposition
to the country’s land-owning oligarchy, supported by the Catholic Church. This group of

land-owners, Church leaders, and peasants under their control organized themselves as the

Conservative Party. On the other side of the spectrum, the reformists, land-hungry peasants, and

their allies all formed under the Liberal Party. In 1948, begining the decade-long conflict in

Colombia, “Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, a charismatic Liberal and land-reform movement leader, was

gunned down in Bogotá” (Molano). Liberal insurecctions broke out in response to this

assassination. This was the beginning of what became known as “La Violencia” (1948-1957), a

conflict between Colombia’s two major political organizations: the Liberals and the

Conservatives. 

During La Violencia, the government, under both the presidencies of Mariano Ospina

Pérez (1946-1950) and Laureano Gómez (1950-1953), armed the conservative peasants and

backed the national police while the Liberals armed themselves. Fighting continued between the

two groups, with Gómez eventually losing support from the moderate Conservatives and the

military establishment. A coup d’etat ousted Gómez and General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla

(1953-1957) took control of the presidency. During his presidency, “irregular violence was

increasingly organized and attributed to self-defense militias and bandit-like groups” (Offstein

102). Specifically in 1955, a military operation was launched against agrarian guerrilla

strongholds in rural regions who fought in the name of Gaitán. This was where the communist

guerrillas were also concentrated. The US lent the Colombian government $170 million and

backed them with the Washington’s National Security Doctrine, which lead to Rojas Pinilla

bombing various guerrilla and opposition peasant groups. Many anti-Rojas Pinilla groups

emerged.
 The period of La Violencia ended in 1958 with the creation of the National Front. The

National Front allowed the two parties to share public offices and alternate in the presidency. The

National Front agreement effectively left out any other party from political representation, with

the poor especially marginalized, and did nothing to resolve the underlying land conflicts. During

this time period after the development of the National Front “the government’s struggle to

address legitimate concerns of rural (and urban) poor while maintaining a strict two-party

Liberal/Conservative political framework allowed for groups with alternative political ideologies

to synthesize into guerrilla-style movements” (Offstein 103). 

In the post-1958 period, the loosely organized guerrilla groups and bandits formed

together to form the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias Colombianas (The Armed Revolutionary

Forces of Colombia or FARC). The FARC formed in the southern areas of Colombia, but north

of them and in the northeast, two other guerrilla groups formed. These two groups were called

the Ejército de Liberación (National Liberation Army or ELN) and the Ejército Popular de

Liberación (Popular Liberation Army or EPL). The ELN was primarily made up of disenchanted

students and recent graduates who favored Cuban style revolutions, and used violence to achieve

their political goals: to improve the conditions of rural peasants and to fight against the

oppressive system that perpetuates their misery. The EPL formed a little bit later to combat

banditry and improve poor agricultural working conditions and wages. In response to these

guerrilla movements, the political violence in the country shifted. Violence became more

organized and oriented toward specific military and political goals. The changes reflected “(1)

the effort by the CCP [Colombian Communist Party] to become the tutor, coordinator, and patron

of the guerrilla’s activities and (2) a decision by the Colombian government to alter its traditional
view of the causes of political violence (the struggle between Liberals and Conservatives) and

adopt a new military strategy to deal with it” (Offstein 104).

In the late 1960s and 1970s, “international support for the movement declined” when the

Soviet government switched their support from the FARC to the Colombian government. Also,

“the military began to carry out more effective counter-insurgency measures” with the

development of Plan Laso which included tripling the military, learning anti-guerrilla techniques,

and using military resources for public works and social programs. Finally, “investments in the

agricultural sector altered the structure of the rural areas” (Offstien 105) and people began

moving to more urban centers. 

Between 1970 and 1982, the FARC grew from a small movement to an army of 3,000,

“with a decentralized hierarchical structure, a general staff, military code, training school and

political programs” (Molano). Meanwhile, in the rural areas of colonization, the peasants’ lacked

any institutionalized support, and were living as permanently displaced peasants. This is what led

them to take up the profitable cultivation of coca. The growth of the FARC was due mainly to the

“repression unleashed against popular protest, and by the growing impoverishment of the

population” (Molano). Also during this time, alliances began to form between the drug

traffickers and the guerrilla movements.

Starting in the early 1980s, the history of the FARC has been mainly a history of peace

negotiations between the guerrilla groups and the Colombian government. The FARC and the

Colombian government alternated between negotiating for peace and then attacks against each

other which then led to the pulling out of each various peace treaty. The guerrilla groups emerged

from these peace negotiations divided, where some guerrilla subgroups used the peace
negotiations as a way to reinsert themselves into mainstream politics. However, not all of the

guerrilla groups followed that direction and they resumed their attacks on the Armed Forces. 

At the same time, the Colombian government continued their efforts at drug eradication,

which caused nearly 200,000 peasants to suffer in their agricultural and economic well-being.

The government’s “aerial fumigations against legal and illegal crops, and government attempts to

quell the circulation of inputs for processing coca leaves by declaring the so-called Special Zones

of Public Order raised the peasant growers' costs of production, and therefore, of their survival as

well” (Molano). Peasants protested in response and the Armed Forces immediately repressed it

in a highly publicized way, leading to the conflicts in the area of colonization to become visible

to the public. This humanized the coca farmers, creating sympathy for their plight, which in turn

led to the Colombian’s believing that the State had lost public order. “As the government

withdrew, the vacuum was filled by the paramilitaries, who had transformed themselves into an

unofficial wing of the Armed Forces” (Molano) in order to attempt to maintain control.

Finally in 1998, they agreed on the basis for negotiation, including “withdrawal of

military authority and police forces from the five municipalities, formation of an unarmed civic

corps to keep local order in the demilitarized zone, dismantling of the paramilitary groups,

decriminalization of popular protest, and convening of participation by the international

community” (Molano). With these conditions, they began the process of negotiation and peace

talks were underway. The unsteady negotiations are still happening to this day and the decades of

fighting, kidnapping, and other crimes are still felt by the public to this day.

C. Walls

Before looking at any murals specifically, we must first look at the way walls provide a

space for resistance and rebellion. Farid Samir Benavides-Vanegas, in their book titled Emerging
Imaginaries of Regulation, Control and Repression, wrote a section on Graffiti and Resistance in

Contemporary Colombia. It was in this chapter that they make the claim that “in Colombia,

traditional forms of resistance used walls as a part of revolutionary strategies”

(Benavides-Vanegas 54). One example of this resistance is the murals created to honor Ché

Guevara and Camilo Torres, which I will talk more in depth about later in the essay. Briefly,

students used walls to shift the narrative of a Plaza from that of obedience to that of resistance

and used murals to create a collective identity by collectively claiming authorship of the

paintings.

A major reason graffiti and murals are such a powerful form of rebellion is because they

border on a form of illegal protest. Oftentimes, cultural activities, specifically ones that threaten

the safety and security of the system of power can be labeled as crimes, even if that crime

remains a part of the community’s culture. This is one way governments can threaten to silence

different cultures and groups of people. Benavides-Vanegas explains that “there's a close

connection between the cultural and the legal, because graffiti can only be such as part of

different strategies of illegallies” (Benavides-Vanegas 53). It is in rebelling against these laws

and restrictions that people differentiate themselves from the systems of power threatening to

silence them. The physical act of creating murals and graffiti is a form of rebellion itself, without

even considering the actual content of the picture. In using graffiti, “the subject seeks to liberate

him or herself from power, be it political, economic, or linguistic” (Benavides-Vanegas 60). The

artist breaks the law, defying authority, and protests against the silencing nature of the laws

against graffiti. 

D. Memory
 Murals and public art are a vehicle to affect memory, specifically public and collective

memory. It is because of this that murals are so powerful in retelling history. Murals are not a

passive form of storytelling though, they are a very active mechanism of transmitting

information. They make claims about the past and the contemporary people’s role in addressing

that past. Ross Poole, the author of Memory, History and the Claims about the Past, claims that

“memory does not simply transmit information from the past to the present; it also transmits

responsibilities” (Poole). This public memory is written by the community, informed by all of the

trauma and suffering that they faced. Murals seek to acknowledge this trauma and inform present

generations on their responsibilities to the past. 

Trauma and memory tie hand in hand. Oftentimes, the trauma that one has experienced

affects how much, how little, and in what way they remember that experience. Bill Rolston and

Sofi Ospina, in their article “Picturing Peace: Murals and Memory in Colombia,” address this tie

between trauma and memory:

“Tautological as it may sound, the antidote to memories of horror is to find a mechanism

for communication to take place whereby, somehow or other, the event is assimilated and

takes on the character of experience; in short, that trauma is transformed into memory.

Where language has been shown to fail as such a mechanism, artistic expression can

fulfil the task” (Rolston).

As Rolson and Ospina explain, there are times when language can not fully express the trauma

one has felt, or even there are times when trauma causes languages to fail as an effective means

of communication. The next means of communication to turn to is artist expression. In

communities where trauma is collective, murals provide a means of expression shared by

everyone there. The mural exists in the public sphere, to be viewed and shared amongst

everyone, allowing their collective memory of that trauma to be acknowledged and validated.

An interesting concept I found while doing research was the idea of “memory

entrepreneurs.” Hendrikje Grunow explains, in their journal “Making Memory on the Wall:

Constructing and Contesting Collective Memory in Bogotá,” that the “graffiteros then become

what Elizabeth Jelin has termed ‘memory entrepreneurs’ (Jelin, 2002: 33), in that they engage in

this struggle by creating comments on what to remember” (Grunow 43). While this oftentimes is

a result of members of the community creating these murals, sometimes it is the government or

systems of power that attempt to use murals to comment on what to remember. In Bogotá, the

initiative for the beautification of Bogotá was worked on by both the members of the community

and the government of the city. In reference to these murals, the Mayor at the time stated, “they

aimed at ‘establishing alliances and dynamic interactions which result in innovative creative

processes that visualise the complex of the victim's rights, generate processes of conscious

realisation among the citizenry in general, and contribute to processes of integral reparation of

the victims’ (Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá, 2012: 3)” (Grunow 45). The government worked

together with the community to share a narrative through these murals, but also as a politically

charged exchange to form an alliance between the people and the state.

E. The Role of the State

The State plays a very important role in the memory-forming process within the

communities of those who suffered. There are many ways that the State can affect this memory.

They can work with the community members, as a means of forming symbolic reparations,

attempting to create a respectful and honest depiction of the history and suffering of the people.
On the other hand, they can use this mural making process as a means of silencing the victims

and changing the narrative of the past horrors that many citizens faced to make the State seem

more favorable. Either way, the State plays a very important role and must make conscious

decisions as to what direction they tend to follow in this memory making process.

In Mampuján, there is a specific mural at work that the State actively worked on as a

form of symbolic reparations. Figure 1 depicts this exact mural. It was painted by an artist from

Bogotá who collaborated with the local people. It depicts the entire history of the village, from

the Spanish conquest, to La Violencia, to the paramilitary displacements, and finally the return of

those displaced. It is important that the public and the State both worked on this mural because

“the demand is that the state be an active participant in the memory work of victims and

survivors; otherwise the invisibility and marginalisation of the victims and survivors continues”

(Rolston). If the State refused to acknowledge the sufferings faced by the people of the village,

their story would be silenced and the victims would continue to be pushed aside. When the State

acknowledges the original injustice and their role in it, the process of rehabilitation for both the

memory and the dignity of the victims can begin the process of restoration, such as the case with

Figure 1.

However, sometimes the state can follow a different, more harmful path in relation to

memory making and mural creation. The state does not always work without ulterior motives, “

the state may have its own goals: to cover up its role in previous atrocities or to harness the

power of memory to serve its current political needs” (Rolston). The state can use murals to

change the narrative they tell, perhaps hiding their responsibilities or even attempting to foster a

false sympathetic position towards the people. 

F. The Ability to Create Discourse

 Another important role that murals can play in the creation of memory building is their

ability to create discourse. Because of their typical placements within towns and cities, they exist

in the public sphere, a place that people share as a community. Hendrikje Grunow, discusses the

lieux de mémoire (space of memory) and how the physical space can affect the murals purpose

within the community:

“What makes the three murals into lieux de mémoire has to do with two aspects: first,

they are lieux in a very obvious way, as the physical space they occupy is an actual plaza.

In addition, they are situated just across the Centre for Memory, Peace, and

Reconciliation, making them an extension in public space to the archival and educational

work that is done there. Secondly, the topics contained in the graffiti create a discursive

space to remember and to express public experiences” (Grunow 45).

The physical space almost forces discussion. These murals, in Figure 2., become impossible to

ignore, encouraging both community members and outsiders to observe and discuss the content

within the murals. 

In terms of graffiti, the source of the murals is also an important point of discussion.

Grunow discusses these artists and their view of their own work, explaining, “many graffiteros

understand graffiti and street art themselves as media of the marginalised, which have the

potential to initiate discussions about the past and the present” (Grunow 43). Graffiti, with its

illegal status, makes it so that when an artist partakes in graffiti, they are automatically existing

outside of the State. This makes the connection between the artist and the graffiti that much more

powerful because the artist themselves participates in a marginalized medium, while also

depicting the struggles of the community who themselves make up a marginalized group. This

street art, as an art of the marginalized, can create discussions about both its content and the risks
the artist took to create the piece. All of this can encourage the audience to contemplate the

illegality of the artwork and what historical contexts led to it.

G. Mothers and Women’s Networks

On March 26th, 2011, a group of youths gathered at a meeting organized by an alleged

FARC militant who offered them money and food. The Colombian military attacked this

meeting, killing sixteen indigenous youths, dressing them in FARC combat uniforms, and

reporting them as guerillas killed in action. A mural was created to honor these victims,

demonstrated in Figure 3. Rolston, who did fieldwork in this area and took the image of the

mural, explains “it is clear that the mural holds pride of place in the heart of Floralba, the mother

of two of the dead, who explained its symbolism to us” (Rolston). The mother holds pride and

respect for the mural depicting her children; however, given the papers overlaying it and the

FARC graffiti sprayed on top, some people do not respect the mural in the same way. This clear

disrespect can be an example of how mother’s experiences in times of conflict are oftentimes

pushed to the side or not taken seriously. The trauma mothers face in times of conflict is very

intense, yet it is regularly hidden behind something that other’s deem as more important, much

like what is happening with the mural in Figure 3.

Rolston also mentions some murals in Mocoa, which were created by a women’s network

called Tejedoras de Vida (Weavers of Life). These women can also be considered ‘memory

entrepreneurs,’ which I’ve discussed earlier as people who engage with conflict by commenting

on what is important to remember. These women “have commissioned murals such as ‘Muro de

la Verdad’ (Wall of Truth) to depict women disappeared and killed as result of the armed

conflict...The murals in Mocoa and Villagarzón list the names and circumstances of women

killed in the conflict in the region or demand to know the whereabouts of the disappeared”
(Rolston). The Muro de la Verdad, Figure 4, demands attention from the public, with it’s bright

colors, bold lettering of “Tejedoras de Vida,” and the list of the disappeared or killed women’s

names. It fights against the idea of women being silenced in times of conflict by boldly

demanding attention, refusing to let the disappeared or killed women remain invisible. This

mural also contains what looks like a pregnant woman within the abstract colors on the right.

This shows that not only are they demanding for people to acknowledge the plight of

womanhood during conflict, but also the plight of motherhood.

In Figure 5, the mural depicts three women from different backgrounds, together, next a

bold text demanding, “Donde estan los desaparecidos (Where are the disappeared?).” The mural

shows community and unitedness among the women who demand accountability from the State

to find the disappeared women. Women from many different places and cultures were displaced

during the conflict, and the women in the mural stand together to demand for all of these women

to be found. They also stand next to a group of unidentifiable figures who reside under the text.

This group shows how numerous the disappeared are. The lack of physical features or any

identifiable traits could be interpreted as how their disappearances are being looked over and

silenced. Women use murals as a means to combat the invisibility that threatens to overshadow

their trauma. They also use murals to demand accountability from the State.

In their book Shattering Silence, Begoña Aretxaga discusses the use of murals by people

in Belfast, Ireland to explain their struggles during the time period of the IRA and political unrest

between Ireland and Britain. Aretxaga specifically lays out how women were both portrayed in

and utilized murals in order to invoke sympathies toward motherhood and women solidarity.

There are several similarities and differences between these murals and the murals I just

discussed in Colombia. Firstly, both the mural of the killed child in Figure 3 and the mural
Aretxaga references in Figure 6 evoke motherhood in displaying the fallen and injured image of

the child. Aretxaga explains the importance of doing so, “in republican culture men’s suffering is

inscribed in their own bodies through their fighting; women’s is inscribed in the bodies of others:

fathers, sons, brothers, husbands, or friends” (Aretxaga 50). This sentiment can also be seen in

the image of Figure 3 where, through cultural context, one could understand how motherhood is

evoked through the image of the killed son. Mother’s suffering is often depicted through the

bodies of their loved ones.

The Belfast mural, in Figure 6, focuses mainly on the mother’s suffering and her

expression, which I believe could provide a parallel with Figure 1, which depicts the history of

conflict in Mampuján along with the image of a woman. The woman seems to be the keeper of

this story, encouraging the viewer to learn the village’s history. Similarly, the suffering of the

mother in the Belfast mural also encourages historical remembrance, as Aretxaga explains,

“through her, historical memory is inscribed, and historical consciousness is maintained in the

next generation. The image makes clear that this consciousness rests on suffering” (Aretxaga 48).

Both images focus on conflict and suffering, the difference is that the Mampuján mural

references the conflict of the town while the Belfast Mural references the suffering of the mother.

Either way, both allude to the fact that women hold power over memory and history, particularly

in relation to their suffering and what they’ve lost. 

Another mural that Aretxaga references is one which “the transnational solidarity of

oppressed women dominates,” (Aretxaga 51) see Figure 7. This parallels very nicely with Figure

5, with the women with different backgrounds standing together for a single cause. This form of

rebellion evokes Aretxaga’s concept of “choiceless decisions” which “embodies a moral

discourse in which the social order is accountable for communal principles of justice that, when
broken, make rebellion necessary” (Aretxaga 61). In both Ireland and Colombia, women faced

many injustices, including women disappearing, being murdered, and being violated physically

and mentally. Each mural demands accountability from society to right these injustices and

demand change from those in power.

H. Ché Guevara and Camilo Torres

The Universidad Nacional de Colombia is an extremely important university in Colombia

because of its significance in relation to the conflict in Colombia. The university provided a

place for students to participate in discourse and form their own movements. It also was a place

where many guerrilla groups recruited many young students willing to die for the cause of a

better society. This was a dangerous action for the students to do because it meant the possibility

of death was even more probable. Perhaps they will be killed in combat against the Colombian

Army such as Camilo Torres or perhaps they will be killed by the guerrilla groups for the

accusation of being undercover agents such as Julio Cesar Cortéz and Jaime Arenas by the ELN.

Many students were also killed simply for being students or being friends with students who

were involved in guerrilla activities. However, sometimes students do not have the ability to join

the guerrilla groups as a form of resistance or choose not to, instead they “use graffiti as an

alternative form of subaltern writing to construct a narrative of resistance” (Benavides-Vanegas

55). Students, under constant danger for their lives, use graffiti as a form of resistance that is

safer than other forms of resistance such as joining guerrilla groups or writing on the conflict.

The central square at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia was known as Plaza General

Francisco de Paula Santander, named after a leader of the Colombian independence movement in

the 1800s. Santander became a symbol for respecting laws and encouraging order. In the 1970s,

students began rejecting this image of Santander. Students began calling the area Plaza Ché
Guevara, after a Cuban-Argentine Marxist revolutionary during the Cuban Revolution who

became a symbol of rebellion. Then commenced a series of riots where the students destroyed a

statue of Santander and painted an image of Ché Guevara on one of the walls. This painting,

despite many attempts to erase it, stayed there for years, see Figure 8. See also Figure 9 this

mural in 1979.

The importance of this mural is that it lacks an author, and therefore it belongs to the

movement. The movement has shifted so that walls have become a place for community

expression. Farid Samir Benavides-Vanegas, who wrote about and studied this Plaza, stated that

“public buildings have become the medium for a new kind of social movement, one in which

there are neither authors nor agents, but one that, because of this particularity, has been able to

convey its emancipatory message effectively” (Benavides-Vanegas 56). For the students, they

can use murals as a form of expression and resistance against the government without the threat

of death that threatens them so often.

Another mural that demonstrates this concept very effectively is the mural of Camilo

Torres, see Figure 10, the student killed in conflict against the Army, as mentioned above,

effectively making him a martyr. The painting is titled “Camilo Torres: 36 Years and hope is

alive” and the authors are the “students with Camilo.” The painting remains unsigned,

insinuating that it belongs to all of the students of the university. Benavides-Venegas explains, “it

does not matter who actually painted the mural (or told the stories); of importance is that the wall

is presumed to be the work of all students, and that they are all identified with Camilo's call for

liberation. By referring to ‘students with Camilo,’ there's a connection with the past and the

future, and a denial of time” (Benavides-Venegas 40). The students connect with and relate to the

martyr, joining them together in ideology and desire for change. It acknowledges the reason why
Camilo joined the resistance and asserts that they still stand with his mission and will stand with

it for the rest of their time as students. 

An interesting aspect about these two murals is the emphasis on each Camilo and Ché

Guevara’s faces. David B Edwards, in his book Caravan of Martyrs: Sacrifice and Suicide

Bombing in Afrghanistan, discusses the emergence of Facebook and how often times there are

post-death shot of the suicide bombers, often with makeup applied posted on these facebook

pages. Edwards explains that these posts “separate the martyr from the violence of the act he

committed, leaving behind only images that represent the act as clean and purifying...a hero’s

immorality is vested in the stories of his exploits that survive him” (Edwards 189-190). In a

similar vein, Camilo and Ché Guevara’s faces have become symbols, repeatedly painted at

various places to evoke a particular notion. Their faces themselves have become symbols for

what they stood for or what injustices happened to them. 

I. Conclusions

Murals have been and continue to be an important form of expression for the people of

Colombia, harnessing the power of memory and shifting the narratives of history. Walls provide

a means of resistance, specifically in terms of graffiti, because the act of creating the piece itself

is a rebellion given the illegality of the act. This rebellion liberates them from the systems of

power and allows them to comment on the state of the country. Murals are integral to affecting

collective memory and memory making. Murals make claims about the past, specifically in

relation to the trauma the public has experienced as a result of the unrest. “Memory

Entrepreneurs” actively work to shift the narratives of history by commenting on what to

remember and how. However, memory isn’t always influenced by the public and sometimes the

State plays a key role, whether that be in the form of symbolic reparations or manipulating the
narratives to make themselves seem more favorable. Murals also have the ability to create

discourse because they exist in the public sphere. A very marginalized group that seeked to use

murals to combat silences were women and mothers who have suffered deaths or disappearances

of loved ones. Finally, at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia the images of Ché Guevara and

Camilo Torres have been used to form a new form of protest that incorporated the idea of unity

by the collective of students claiming the murals.

Murals, as the media of the marginalized, often share the stories of those whose voices

are silenced or overshadowed. They use artistic expression and public locations to demand

change and accountability. The public in Colombia has effectively utilized murals in this way, as

demonstrated by the various murals I’ve mentioned. However, the murals in this paper hardly

scratch the surface of artist expression in Colombia. They have used song, dance, sculptures,

animations, and the list goes on. Art has the capacity to carry a narrative of rebellion in a loud

and communal way, demanding attention. Recently, social media such as Instagram and YouTube

have provided a platform for these artistic rebellions to be shared amongst thousands of others

(Wilson). As Edwards explains when talking about Facebook, “the medium belongs to no one

and everyone simultaneously” (Edwards 174). This extension of collective art further brings

power and unity to the people of Colombia as they continue to fight against oppression, demand

accountability, and refuse to be silenced.

 Figures

Figure 1. Photo by Rolston. Mampuján, mural displaying the history of conflict in the village.

Rolston, Bill, and Sofi Ospina. “Mampuján, Mural Displaying the History of Conflict in the 
Village.” Sage Journals, 12 Jan. 2017,
https://journals-sagepub-com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/doi/10.1177/0306396816663387.
Accessed 10 Dec. 2021. 
Figure 2. Images by Hendrikje Grunow of three murals outside of Centre for Memory, Peace,

and Reconciliation.

Grunow, Hendrikje. “Three Murals Outside of Centre for Memory, Peace, and Reconciliation.” 
Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, 2019,
https://edoc.ku.de/id/eprint/25911/1/NJ2-1_05-Grunow.pdf. Accessed 10 Dec. 2021. 
Figure 3. Photo by Rolston. Gargantillas, commemorating the massacre of local young people.

Rolston, Bill, and Sofi Ospina. “Gargantillas, Commemorating the Massacre of Local Young 
People.” Sage Journals, 12 Jan. 2017,
https://journals-sagepub-com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/doi/10.1177/0306396816663387.
Accessed 10 Dec. 2021. 
Figure 4. Photo by Rolston. Mocoa, in memory of women casualties. 

Rolston, Bill, and Sofi Ospina. “Mocoa, in Memory of Women Casualties. .” Sage Journals, 12 
Jan. 2017,
https://journals-sagepub-com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/doi/10.1177/0306396816663387.
Accessed 10 Dec. 2021. 
Figure 5. Photo by Rolston. Mocoa, “Where are the disappeared?”

Rolston, Bill, and Sofi Ospina. “Mocoa, ‘Where Are the Disappeared?’” Sage Journals, 12 Jan. 
2017, https://journals-sagepub-com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/doi/10.1177/0306396816663387.
Accessed 10 Dec. 2021. 
Figure 6. From Shattering Silence, (Aretxaga 48).
Figure 7. From Shattering Silence, (Aretxaga 49).
 ​

Figure 8. Present day mural of Ché Guevara.

Las2orillas. “Present Day Mural of Ché Guevara.” Las 2 Orillas, 17 Sept. 2020, 
https://www.las2orillas.co/cuando-cambiaran-la-imagen-del-asesino-homofobico-che-gu
evara-en-la-universidad-nacional/. Accessed 10 Dec. 2021. 
Figure 9. Mural featuring Ché Guevara from 1979.

Serrano, Sebastián. “LAZA CHE EN 1973.//ARCHIVO: UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL.” VICE,

25 
Oct. 2016,
https://www.vice.com/es/article/4w9k5q/che-universidad-nacional-santander-tropel-1976
-policia. Accessed 10 Dec. 2021. 
Figure 10. From Cornell University. Graffiti of Camilo Torres.

Quintero, Gustavo. “A Graffiti of Camilo Torres as a Guerrilla Fighter in the Library Also 
Named ‘Biblioteca Camilo Torres’ at the National University of Colombia in Bogotá.”
Cornell University, https://blogs.cornell.edu/lasp/tag/camilo-torres/. Accessed 10 Dec.
2021. 
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Edwards, David B. Caravan of Martyrs: Sacrifice and Suicide Bombing in Afghanistan, 

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Note: See Images for Image Citations