Art As Witness Of An Era:Contributing To The Preservation Of Historical Memory,Rebuilding Milestones And Awareness Of People Through Artwork

In a purely social perspective,art can be considered from two points of view.First,as mechanism able to revive historical happenings that afflict contemporary cultures,which is possible by a social reading of artworks.Second,as mechanism to generate social awareness and change within communities,which is part of the social function of art.In this sense,art can be seen as forger of national identity as well as mechanism to promote behavioral changes within communities.Additionally,art can be used to educate people within conflictive societies.In order to demonstrate the proposed thesis,the current research focused on the analysis of two artworks developed by two different artists: the artwork “Silent Prayer” by Colombian artist Doris Salcedo and the art research project “Suicidology of the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge(monument to the visitors)” by Chinese artist Qiu Zhijie.The first illustrates social issues of Colombian political violence while the second refers to the suicide phenomenon in China.Each one emphasizes the important role of art to produce social awareness and social changes.Both of them invite spectators to reflect and perceive sociocultural issues from an artistic perspective.Additionally,these social approaches constitutes the theoretical frame to an artistic proposal oriented to give voice to victims of the Bojaya's Massacre in Colombia.Besides,testimonies of victims,press releases,videos,and stories serve as research documents for the final artwork.The proposal is focused on the idea of “educating people through art”.This means to develop an art that has a strong social commitment in order to foster social awareness and change within Colombian communities.This idea,which has a touch of personal narrative in children's literature,is focused on a younger audience;however,its educational applicability is oriented to work with a different kind of audiences.Art is immensely rich.Its exploration has no limits or boundaries.Its legacy moves people toward their own future and produce hope in those who come in contact with it.Its performance is such a huge and sublime thing that allows people to learn through their own experiences without forcing them thinking just in one direction.Art invites to contemplate and create new human paradigms.