Travels of dialogue "Remembering & travelling"
Our travels of dialogue are part of GUMELAB project's transfer activities aimed at sharing scientific knowledge with society through the Citizen Science approach. There will be two dialogue tours in Chile and three in Colombia with different participants.
Remembering & travelling #1: “(In)visible images of the Dictatorship in Tocopilla”:
On Wednesday 16 March 2022, the first travel of dialogue took place in Tocopilla - Chile in cooperation with the University of Chile. During the travel of dialogue “Remembering & Travelling: (In)visible images of the Dictatorship in Tocopilla”, the GUMELAB team visited different places in the city of Tocopilla together with students from the Liceo Polivalente Domingo Latrille. We talked about the memories of the dictatorship in Tocopilla and how it is portrayed in TV series. Other topics were mining, the environment and what social protest look like yesterday and today in Tocopilla. These issues are directly and indirectly present in the few series that depict the history of the Chilean North, such as the Chilean series “Ecos del Desierto”.
Remembering & travelling #2: “Los 80 in Santiago’s downtown – protests and the economic model”
Together with students of the fields film, communications and journalism from the Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano and the Universidad Santiago de Chile, as well as with our cooperation partners of the Institute of Communication and Image at the Universidad de Chile, the second travel of dialogue “Los 80 in Santiago’s downtown: protests and the economic model” took place in the city center on Thursday, March 24, 2022. We visited various places in Santiago that are, on the one hand, relevant for the plot of the Chilean TV series Los 80. On the other, these places are in the present still important for Chile’s history because of their role for social protests or for the economic model. The historical archival materials that are included into the plot of the series show the links between the past and the present.
Travel of dialogue "Remembering & Travelling #3 "Experiences of resistance in the north-western area of Medellín 1990 - 2000", Medellín, 08.10.2022
During the third travel of dialogue "Remembering & traveling" in Medellín, we will visit different places in the city with students of the Colegio Copacabana. The places are symbolic for the resistance against drug trafficking and violence by the Medellín cartel. Especially in the 80s and 90s, many young people became contract killers, so-called sicarios, for the drug cartel. This made them an integral part of telenovelas and series, such as Pablo Escobar - El Patrón del Mal, Narcos or other narconovelas. Why do young people get into such spirals of violence? Often, they are promised to escape poverty, or it is fear of losing family members that makes them accept such "work" for drug lords. However, telenovelas and series rarely show the young people's social context, which is what turns them into sicarios in the first place. They are usually only shown on the sidelines, for example as Pablo Escobar's right-hand people.
The dialogue trip is conceived and conducted together with our cooperation partners Gicela Andrea Aguirre García and Víctor Casas (Universidad de Antioquia). We will visit places and organizations that help Medellín's youth to leave these structures behind.
The dialogue trip is part of GUMELAB's transfer measures. It brings research closer to people who do not work in an academic context. The aim is mutual exchange and learning together.
Remembering & travelling #4 "Affected. But Invisible.", Bogota, October 11, 2022
On October 11, the fourth travel of dialogue will take place. This event is being organized in close cooperation with Idipron trainers Kalia Ronderos (Asociación Caompania La Otra) and our cooperation partners Carolina Galindo (Universidad del Rosario) and Tatjana Louis (Universidad de los Andes).
Ex-homeless people are working together with Idipron to get people off the streets and give them back their rights. The itinerary for the dialogue trip was designed by Idipron and will show the "invisible" Bogotá - the city as seen by people who have no permanent home. The armed conflict and drug trafficking had, and still has, a direct impact on homeless people. Yet they are rarely depicted in telenovelas and series. An exception is a short scene in Pablo Escobar - El Patrón del Mal, which shows the homeless as vulnerable and easily manipulated. The travel of dialogue addresses these gaps and reflects on the representation of homelessness in Colombian telenovelas and series. Afterward, there will be workshops on the analysis of films and series, as well as on topics such as citizenship and critical media consumption.
The dialogue trip is part of GUMELAB's transfer measures. Through dialogue and collaboration with former homeless persons, the research on telenovelas and series is brought closer to people outside the academic context, and critical media consumption is encouraged.
Remembering & Travelling #5, "The Drug Trade and the Salsa Boom in Cali", Cali, Oct. 15, 2022
The fifth travel of dialogue is about the role of music for the city of Cali, the "capital of salsa". This time we will not visit places, but rather people who make the city what it is. We will talk to music students, musicians, and salsa experts about the representation of music in telenovelas and series. We will explore why salsa was so important for the Cali Cartel and how power structures strengthened the music. This will include the third season of Narcos, Escobar - El Patrón del Mal, En la Boca del Lobo and El Cartel de los Sapos: El origen. For example, the salsa singer Yuri Buenaventura partially did the score for the Colombian telenovela Escobar - El Patrón del Mal. This shows a direct connection between music and telenovelas and series.
The travel of dialogue is part of GUMELAB's transfer measures to strengthen the exchange between science and society.