UPCOMING PROJECT

EL BOSQUE DE LA ESPERANZA // THE FOREST OF HOPE //

El Bosque de la Esperanza is a collaborative long-term project aiming to establish a virtual and physical, dispersed, self-managed, affordable, and modular memorial to commemorate the victims of enforced disappearance in Mexico.

CONTEXT

Mexico is facing a humanitarian crisis. It has reached the devastating number of more than 110,000 missing and disappeared persons according to official registries whereby the number of disappeared women has tripled within the past six years. In a context of almost absolute impunity and lack of political will, families are forced to look for the bodies of their loved ones themselves, dealing with grief alone with little space to mourn.

Based on the requests made directly to us by Mexican family collectives dedicated to searching and finding their loved ones, the Bosque de la Esperanza seeks to improve the access to the right to memory across various regions in Mexico by proposing a self-constructed and virtual memorial for victims of disappearances in Mexico assisted by transdisciplinary aesthetic approaches such as Augmented Reality (AR) and film. In doing so, El Bosque de la Esperanza endeavors to weave together the Trees of Hope: ribbons hung on trees scattered throughout Mexico created by family members searching for their missing loved ones, a practice that began in 2015 in Torreon, Coahuila. Moreover, immersive technologies will be used to prompt a shift in perception and foster empathy among audiences who may not be directly impacted, with the aim of initiating a rehumanization process.

PROJECT OUTPUT

Further expanding the distribution and production of ribbons designed for the Trees of Hope (Arboles de la Esperanza), each bearing a picture of a victim's loved one and intended to be tied to a tree.
Developing El Bosque de la Esperanza using the QR code of the ribbons to enter an online immersive platform where the families of the disappeared person can upload the material (photos, music, videos, etc.) they want in order to create their own personalised memorial site.
To address the needs of the victims and share the collected knowledge and methodologies with other collectives in Mexico, as well as with a broader audience unaffected by the issue, a documentary short film, a manual detailing the methods used, and an academic research paper will be created to disseminate the process, findings, and successful approaches.
In order to share our research and to popularize the memorial across Mexico and beyond, an exhibition will be planned in various cities of the country as well as abroad in Switzerland and Germany.

For this project, VIFT is collaborating with Sergio Beltrán García who is an architect, activist, and researcher. He works closely with victims of human rights violations, their defenders, and communities in Mexico to mobilize memory in political, cultural, and legal forums. His main focus is the construction of memorials and he collaborates with the organization Forensic Architecture.

PROJECT TEAM

Aline Wani - Research Lead
Maevia Griffiths - Documentation Lead
Sergio Beltrán García  - Creative Lead