50 Letters

Photo credits: Carolina Bácares
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Carolina Bácares

2015
Facility

One letter repeats: “My love. My love.” Another reads: “Bogotá, 9 January 1950. Dear Lolita, you don’t know how sad this year has been for me, separated from those I love most, and to think I don’t know when I’ll see them again.” These are missives from a family in the 1950s, handwritten, typed, on paper or photographs, offering a glimpse into life during the period known as La Violencia between 1946 and 1958. Bácares invites reflection on everyone’s right to access public documents, established in Article 74 of the Constitution, and its close relation to the right to memory, posing the question: Should a private document that preserves the memory of an entire nation be considered a public document?