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State of Disappearance exhibition

This exhibition explores different forms of 'disappearance', and shows how art can be integral to the learning environment and enhance the student experience.

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State of Disappearance draws attention to the global problem of enforced disappearances, which is recognised under international law as a form of torture and a crime against humanity. The exhibition invites you to reflect on the multiple forms disappearance takes, and the long-lasting impacts felt by individuals and communities.

Hosted in The Chancellors' Building, State of Disappearance features the artwork of Mexican painter Chantal Meza. It launched on 26 September 2024, the day that poignantly marked the 10th anniversary of the disappearance of 43 students from Ayotzinapa (Mexico).

A key aspect of the exhibition is the role of art within the learning environment and its potential to enhance the student experience. Because of this, part of the collection is housed in an adjacent room away from the main collection (The Chancellors' Building Room 5.12), which is a space used for teaching sessions and prominent events - including a visit from advocates and family members affected by the history of disappearance in Northern Ireland.

“As educators we always need to find creative and thoughtful ways to explore and respond to the most challenging issues that endanger our shared humanity. This initiative seeks to create a dialogue between art and academia, challenging us to confront the pressing social issues of our time. The role of art in education cannot be overstated. Art gives us a way to engage with complex and often painful realities more profoundly. It’s not just about understanding the issue - it’s about finding solutions and inspiring change.” - Co-curator and Centre for the Study of Violence Director, Dr Brad Evans.

1 - Exhibition overview

Introduction to the State of Disappearance exhibition by Professor Phil Taylor, Vice Chancellor and President of the University of Bath.

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2 - Realm of Words

In this opening segment narrated by Chantal Meza, she explains her encounters and journey into the problem of disappearance. Reflecting on her use of abstract painting and how colour and shapes allow her to express what cannot always be put into words, she conveys the importance of the image in creating a visual testimony of the violence of absence and the denial of human life.

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3 - Apparitions

Chantal explains how the memory of the disappeared came to her through the thousands of photocopied sheets of faces she witnessed from a young age that were pasted on the walls in every town and city in Mexico. Do they constitute a form of portraiture? But ones that only leave a fleeting impression? And what can be captured, retained or recovered, from those thousands of images, which become apparitions in the mind?

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4 - Obscure Beasts

Who is the perpetrator? Who is the victim? And what becomes of the witness? When dealing with the violence of disappearance these questions refuse to provide clear answers. Speaking of the importance of colour and texture when dealing with the links between humans and assumed animalistic states as we try to account for the extreme violence humans are capable of inflicting upon one another, the Obscure Beasts series asks us to consider searching questions of our relationship to others, especially when that relationship is driven by a desire to inflict harm and suffering.

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5 - Fragments of a Catastrophe

Disappearance doesn't just bring terror and suffering to its victims. Those who are forced to live with disappearance are caught up in a wider psychological economy of anguish. Yet it is often left to family members and loved ones to search for the missing and scour landscapes that have become complicit in the denial. Fragments here become everything; from the fragments of clothing, which can provide memory and proof, to the fragments of memory that fade, like hope, over time. What do these fragments tell us? And how might the earth itself not only appear as complicit, but a witness to the disappearance?

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6 - The Void

Disappearance creates a devastating absence. This is not just about bodies taken from a particular location. Disappearance, as family members continue to explain, ruptures all sense of space and time. Philosophers have referred to these absences as “voids” that are marked by an intensity that is beyond all comprehension. In this segment, Chantal speaks directly of her artistic understanding of the void, the inspiration behind this series of charcoal works, and how we do encounter it, from time to time, in the eyes of those form who the forces of history have thrown them into a vortex of grief within which the absence is consuming.

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7 - Collapse of Consciousness

How can individuals and societies deal with the tremendous moral and ethical weight disappearance creates? Can we even escape from the violence, from the absence that chains us, or does it leave us trapped in a cave of doubt? Chantal concludes her narration by explaining why the encounter with disappearance leads to a collapse in consciousness, and a prevailing sense that the impunity which reigns leaves everybody who is touched feeling like there is no possible recovery. And yet, as she explains, it is through our simple recounters with fellow humans, that new relations can be established and the violence and terror faced can be outlived.

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