Using the methods of semi-structured personal interviews and a post test-only experiment, this study examined the creation and effects of a photography project initiated by the Commission of Peru. The interviews revealed how the project came to be and how it was put together. When selecting photographs, the curators had two goals in mind: reconstructing the chronology of the conflict as well as communicating the suffering of the victims. The quantitative results indicate that the exhibit is having the desired effects. A post test-only experiment (n=109) measured the effects of viewing the photographs on four variables of reconciliation: truth, forgiveness, trust in government and resentment. The study found that viewing the photographs increased respondents' confidence that they understood the truth about the conflict, but did not have any effect on their levels of trust in government or resentment. For those people who experienced traumatic events, viewing the photographs helped them to forgive. In contrast, respondents who did not experience traumatic events forgave less after seeing the pictures. Drawing from conflict theory, the study explores the role that photography could play in the reconciliation process on both national and personal level.

Peru was enveloped in an internal armed conflict from 1980 to 2000. The Shining Path, a militant communist group, sought to revolutionize Peru through violence. Indigenous Peruvians were targeted in extrajudicial massacres and killings. Nearly 70,000 people, mostly indigenous, were either killed or disappeared by both the Shining Path and government military forces (CVR 2004). Today, post-conflict Peru still grapples with the human rights violations of the past and is challenged to achieve reconciliation. For the victims of violence, how the memory of the conflict is conveyed is an important element of the transitional justice process (Alexander et al. 2004). My interdisciplinary research explores collective memory, the shared representation of the past that is socially constructed by a group of people (Halbwachs 1992). The Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission identified the region of Ayacucho as the epicentre of violence during the conflict (CVR 2004, 21).

Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission not only documented the political violence of the 1980s and 1990s but also gave Peruvians a unique opportunity to examine the causes and nature of that violence. In Art from a Fractured Past, scholars and artists expand on the commission's work, arguing for broadening the definition of the testimonial to include various forms of artistic production as documentary evidence. Their innovative focus on representation offers new and compelling perspectives on how Peruvians experienced those years and how they have attempted to come to terms with the memories and legacies of violence. Their findings about Peru offer insight into questions of art, memory, and truth that resonate throughout Latin America in the wake of "dirty wars" of the last half century. Exploring diverse works of art, including memorials, drawings, theater, film, songs, painted wooden retablos (three-dimensional boxes), and fiction, including an acclaimed graphic novel, the contributors show that art, not constrained by literal truth, can generate new opportunities for empathetic understanding and solidarity. Contributors. Ricardo Caro Cárdenas, Jesús Cossio, Ponciano del Pino, Cynthia M. Garza, Edilberto Jímenez Quispe, Cynthia E. Milton, Jonathan Ritter, Luis Rossell, Steve J. Stern, María Eugenia Ulfe, Víctor Vich, Alfredo Villar

Photography, Truth and Reconciliation charts the connections between photography and a crucial issue in contemporary social history. The book examines the prevalence of photography in cultural responses to processes of truth and reconciliation, and argues that photographs are a valuable means through which stories can be retold and historiography can be rethought. Five compelling case studies from Argentina, Canada, Australia, South Africa and Cambodia underscore the special role that this medium has played in facilitating processes of recovery, and in reconstructing suppressed histories, even when a documentary record of the events does not exist. The diverse practices addressed in this book – including artistic, protest, institutional, archival, legal and personal photography – prompt a new consideration of photography’s links to presence, place, time, spectatorship and justice. Collectively, these practices attest to photography’s key role in transitional justice, and in shaping historical understanding internationally. Important reading for students taking photography, visual culture, history and media studies courses, Photography, Truth and Reconciliation explores key historical and theoretical themes, including photography and testimony, international discourses on human rights and justice, and problematic notions of public and collective memory. The introduction and conclusion of this book are freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com