Disparitions

While more than one hundred and ten thousand people have been declared "missing" in Syria, that Ukrainian civilians are victims of enforced disappearances, the approach of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary – September 11, 1973 – of the coup d’état of General Pinochet, the Éditions d’une rive à l’autre have brought together the voices of Cyril Burget – visual artist – and Martine Déotte – sociologist – in a work of memory, testimony and homage to all the victims of enforced disappearances but also to recall that enforced disappearance is a crime against humanity. Cyril Burget, visual artist, tries to give back bodies of missing Chileans thrown into the ocean to erase all traces of their existence during the dictatorship. Their portraits, entrusted by the families, are printed using a chemical-free process, which he calls "phytocopy", on large algae collected in Chile. Their faces appear and disappear. Neither dead nor alive. "Like water, like every substance Alive, the algae has this capacity to absorb into its cells the memory of those who touch it, or the invisible traces of a past existence. It is in my eyes the metaphorical symbol of memory, the representation of this metaphor”. Cyril Burget Martine Déotte, sociologist, highlights the specificity of political disappearance and what makes it a crime against humanity. It takes as its starting point the context of dictatorships South American countries and expands its analysis internationally.