Mexico has the highest number of enforced disappearances in Latin America: an average of 28 people disappear violently and involuntarily every day. More than 100,000 people are considered missing, according to the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED). In most of these cases, their families are left broken, isolated and ignored by both political decisionmakers and the mainstream media. Society marginalizes the tragedy and stigmatizes the victims, as there is a widespread misconception that there is a valid reason why they were targeted, such as a connection to organized crime.
Through empathy, art and dialogue, DW Akademie works together with the organization Técnicas Rudas to support the families, remove the stigmatization from the image of the victims and to show that anyone can suffer the misfortune of forced disappearance. Putting a face to the victims and conveying the pain of the families is in line with the UN recommendations to combat thethreat by informing and educating society about these crimes.
Families of disappeared persons express their emotions through different artistic expressions, such as embroidery
As part of the project "Narratives and Memories of Disappearance in Mexico" (Narrativas y Memorias de la Desaparición en México), Técnicas Rudas brings art and media professionals, academics and researchers together with relatives of victims of enforced disappearance, to engage in different artistic and collective activities.
More than just words
Since the beginning of 2020, the joint effort of the project has made it possible to develop events and create products as diverse as theater, embroidery and illustration that express uncertainty and grief, but also hope. Families have made podcasts, songs and poems that capture the persistence of their search. Others have participated in collective exhibitions of posters that denounce the situation and demand justice.
The artist Arturo Muñoz Rodríguez, who performs under the name el Carcará, supported the Mothers in Search Collective of Coatzacoalcos by helping to create the song "La Búsqueda" (The Search). This song was the result of a workshop and its lyrics describe the emotional and physical route that a day's search entails for the mothers of the victims of enforced disappearance.
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Breaking the silence – Innovative narratives raise the visibility of enforced disappearance victims
On the move and creating awareness
The project “Narratives and Memories of Disappearance in Mexico”, by Técnicas Rudas and DW Akademie, travels around the country with an exhibition that presents artistic works while offering workshops and talks. These portraits show people searching using photographs of their loved ones. The victims of this kind of violence are not only the disappeared, but everyone who remains in uncertainty.
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Breaking the silence – Innovative narratives raise the visibility of enforced disappearance victims
Rhymes for the missing
María del Pilar Ramos reads her poem in the room of her disappeared son Ángel Jaret Ramos. As part of the Técnicas Rudas workshops, poet Judith Santoprieto guided and supported Ramos and seven other women to tell their stories and experiences of searching for missing family members through narratives and poetry.
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Breaking the silence – Innovative narratives raise the visibility of enforced disappearance victims
Drawing what cannot be said
Empathy is what brings people together – and what is often denied to relatives of disappeared people. A group of plastic artists from different parts of Mexico created eight posters in which they tried to express what could not be expressed in words. It served as the stage background for a concert from Carcará (middle), one of the musicians who collaborate with Técnicas Rudas.
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Breaking the silence – Innovative narratives raise the visibility of enforced disappearance victims
Uniting in the face of stigmatization
Engaging civil society is key to raising awareness and putting pressure on the authorities. For this reason, the Expo Rodante de Técnicas Rudas also organized a collective poster exhibition. It is the result of a public call that invited anyone who wanted to participate, without distinction, to generate visual materials to make forced disappearance visible.
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Breaking the silence – Innovative narratives raise the visibility of enforced disappearance victims
The search echoed through microphones
Mare Advertencia Lirika, Mexican rapper, social activist and feminist, is part of the cast of artists collaborating with the project “Narratives and Memories of Disappearance in Mexico” by Técnicas Rudas. The artist adds to the cause with songs that address the physical and emotional impact of loss and calls for justice. "Wanted!" she says with the power of her voice.
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Breaking the silence – Innovative narratives raise the visibility of enforced disappearance victims
A metaphor that helps healing
Actors perform a theater play as part of the traveling exhibition. Written by actress and playwright Verónica Maldonado, it is a metaphor to explain to the youngest family members the absence of the disappeared: they do not leave of their own free will, nor is it known if they are still alive. To write it, Maldonado lived with the families and accompanied them on their searches for loved ones.
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Breaking the silence – Innovative narratives raise the visibility of enforced disappearance victims
Collective embroidery: A cushion for pain
Embroidery, a common activity for millions of women around the world, becomes a tool to make visible and denounce forced disappearances. The collective embroideries are a form of expression accessible to all people who are searching for their loved ones. They serve as a joint exercise to help cushion the pain.
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Breaking the silence – Innovative narratives raise the visibility of enforced disappearance victims
Representing their deepest feelings
Actress and textile artist Sandra Reyes enabled family members searching for their missing loved ones, like Rosalba Rojas (pictured), to channel their pain through the creation of a doll. The item represents their own image or that of the missing person, to which they can add anything, from personal objects to messages of hope and love.
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Breaking the silence – Innovative narratives raise the visibility of enforced disappearance victims
Art to demand accountability
Bruno, the brother of Mexican performance artist and anthropologist Lukas Avendaño (right), disappeared in 2018 and was found dead in 2020. Through artistic interventions, Lukas has denounced the inaction of the authorities and demanded from public servants an end to impunity in the face of these crimes. He also plays an important role in accompanying searching families.
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Breaking the silence – Innovative narratives raise the visibility of enforced disappearance victims
From marginalization to recognition
These diverse artistic expressions are compiled in a book that shares its name with the project. It is a collection of new ways of narrating pain and suffering, but also hope and courage based on empathy and solidarity. The work places the victims and their families at the center, in the hopes of replacing a stigmatizing discourse with the search for justice.
After the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, Técnicas Rudas, with the support of DW Akademie, launched an investigation into the relationship between the health crisis and enforced disappearances. Their findings were then represented through both art and journalism. The collaborative work "Desaparecer en Pandemia" united Mexican activists, researchers, journalists, programmers, designers and visual artists to make visible, through four innovative stories, another hidden face of the ever-growing number of disappearances that plague the country.
As the search continues, new narratives and forms of expression accompany the tireless families. They try to give comfort to the pain and keep hope alive, until their loved ones are found.
DW Akademie has worked with Técnicas Rudas in Mexico since early 2020. The independent local organization supports the victims of enforced disappearance in Mexico through strategic research and forming partnerships. DW Akademie’s goal is to make human rights topics more visible to the general public. In 2011, the UN declared August 30 to be the annual "International Day of Victims of Enforced Disappearances".
The project “Narrativas y Memorias de la Desaparición en México” is supported by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
