Roundtable: Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador: Participatory Research and Co-Creation with Civil War Survivors

Dr. Amanda Grzyb, Professor of Information and Media Studies, Western University, Canada
Dr. Ir. Arch Harold Fallon, Founder of AgwA, Professor at KU Leuven Faculty of Architecture
Thomas Montulet, Civil engineer architect, Collaborator at AgwA, Ph.D candidate at UCL-LOCI, Brussels campus
Evelia Macal, Architect, Urbanist, and Ceramicist
Dr. Adriana Alas, Post-doctoral Researcher, University of Western OntarioFernando Chacón Serrano, Lecture and Researcher, Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas

The Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador (www.elsalvadormemory.org) collaborative research initiative is
an international partnership of survivors, scholars, artists, lawyers, museums, architects, community
organizers, municipal governments, civil society organizations and mental health professionals who are
committed to documenting the history of the Salvadoran Civil War (1980-1992), supporting transitional justice
and preventing future violence. Using decolonial and participatory methodologies, the team’s goal is to engage
in high-impact, community-driven research projects, oral histories, and accessible knowledge sharing activities
that approach historical memory work holistically through the intersections of justice; art, music, and theatre;
intergenerational education; documentation and testimonies; mental health and healing; commemoration;
environmental reparation; and local economic reconstruction. In this Round Table discussion, Dr. Amanda Grzyb
will provide an overview of the project, and then several members of our team will highlight examples of our
participatory projects in El Salvador, emphasizing our survivor-led methodologies in formal and informal
spaces; the relationships between grassroots organizations and international collaborators; and the role of art,
architecture, documentation, and intergenerational and cross-sector dialogue in postwar recovery and justice.