Surviving Memory Presents the Draft Community Strategic Plan in Santa Marta
Members of the Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador team from the Santa Marta Historical Memory Committee, Ferris State University, and Western University presented the Community Strategic Plan to the wider Santa Marta Community. This plan is the result of a deeply collaborative process involving more than 40 community members. The work began long before the Surviving Memory project arrived, and our role has mainly been to accompany the process, listen, and help shape what was already taking root.
We are grateful to have shared this journey and to continue learning from the collective strength of Santa Marta.
The Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador research initiative is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Western University, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and the Ontario Research Fund.
Threads that Unite Us: Collective Art Gathering with Salvadoran Artist Teresa Cruz at Western
Western University will host Salvadoran embroiderer and visiting artist Teresa Cruz for a drop-in collective art gathering on October 2 and 3. The atrium of the FIMS and Nursing Building (FNB) will transform into a studio where participants will help create a large tapestry of resistance.
Participants are invited to stitch a small piece of the tapestry. Through the slow, mindful act of embroidery, craft becomes both solidarity and defiance – against fascism, white supremacy, authoritarianism, escalating attacks on trans lives and 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, and the persistence of misogyny. Each stitch is personal and communal – an image, word, or symbol of resistance – woven into a larger fabric that unites shared struggles.
Students, faculty, and staff are welcome to create art that both resists and heals, regardless of embroidery experience.
This is a drop-in collaborative event: arrive at any time, begin a new piece, or continue one left by another participant. Accompanying artists Soheila K. Esfahani, Tricia Johnson, and Kayla MacInnes will also join the gathering.
Event Details
What: Threads that Unite Us — Collective Art Drop-In Gathering
When: Thursday, October 2 (10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.) & Friday, October 3 (9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.)
Where: FIMS and Nursing Building (FNB), Western University
The event is co-sponsored by the Faculty of Information and Media Studies, the Rogers Chair of Studies in Journalism and New Information Technology, the Department of Anthropology, the Department of Visual Arts, the Department of Languages and Cultures, the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, the Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador project, the Liberia CRSV project, and Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen. It is supported in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
Embroidery and Historical Memory Workshop in Toronto
If you are based in the Toronto area, the Salvadoran Canadian Association (ASALCA) invites you to an embroidery workshop where participants can learn about and share the history of our Salvadoran community. All members of the Salvadoran diaspora are invited to participate. See the poster for more details.
The Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador research initiative is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Western University, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and the Ontario Research Fund.
Students from the University of El Salvador at the Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen
Students from the University of El Salvador (UES) photographed the exhibition “Memórias del T-zumpul” [Memories of T-zumpul] during their visit to the Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen [Museum of the Word and Image, MUPI] in the morning of September 23.
The exhibition commemorates the more than 600 civilian victims of the massacre perpetrated in Las Aradas, Chalatenango, on May 14, 1980.
Historical memory, community resistance, and the design of the Las Aradas Memorial are explored through architectural drawings, models, ceramics, paintings, embroidery, videos, and survivors’ archives.
The Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador research initiative is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Western University, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and the Ontario Research Fund.
Salvadoran Embroideries Featured in Guadalupe Maravilla’s “Les Soñadores” Exhibition in Los Angeles
As part of the exhibition “Les Soñadores” [The Dreamers], the Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen [Museum of the Word and Image, MUPI] is presenting a selection of embroideries made by women from Las Vueltas, Chalatenango. The exhibition opened last Saturday, September 13, at REDCAT gallery, located in Downtown Los Angeles, California, United States.
The exhibition’s curator, Daniela Lieja Quintanar, stated: “For us as an institution, and for the artist Guadalupe Maravilla, it is an honor to be able to show these valued objects of art and resistance at REDCAT. They will engage with migrant communities in California, alongside the work of Salvadoran artist Guadalupe Maravilla, who captures stories through retablos, sculptures, video, and music.”
Guadalupe Maravilla’s work focuses on his experience of migration from El Salvador to the United States. At the age of seven, he fled the civil war alone, without family members, on a journey marked by uprooting. Later, he survived colon cancer, an illness he himself relates to the trauma of forced displacement, migration, and his life as an undocumented person in the United States.
For both the artist and the curator, the inclusion of MUPI’s embroideries means giving voice to those who remained in El Salvador facing violence, while also weaving everyday resistance. It is also a way to make visible a history that is rarely told in the United States, although it is deeply known by the Salvadoran diaspora.
The exhibition “Les Soñadores” will remain open to the public from September 13 to December 19, 2025, at REDCAT gallery in Los Angeles, located at 631 W 2nd St, Los Angeles, CA 90012.
Link note [in Spanish]: https://museo.com.sv/.../el-mupi-participa-en-exposicion.../
The Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador research initiative is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Western University, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and the Ontario Research Fund.
Intergenerational Gathering on the La Ceiba Massacre
The gathering was facilitated by Cáritas Chalatenango and the Surviving Memory project, with support from the Sumpul Association, and brought together 35 young people and adults from the La Ceiba community.
Through dance, writing, and painting, spaces for intergenerational dialogue were created to share experiences and reflections on the massacre that took place in Cantón La Ceiba, Chalatenango, in August 1980, when the National Guard and ORDEN paramilitaries killed eight people.
The Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador research initiative is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Western University, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and the Ontario Research Fund.
41 Years Since the Gualsinga Massacre
Four members of the Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador project have Communities from Chalatenango gathered at the site to commemorate the victims, in an initiative led by the Colectivo de Memoria Histórica [Historical Memory Collective] of Chalatenango.
The Gualsinga River Massacre took place in Nueva Trinidad in August 1984 and claimed the lives of 78 people. Every year, survivors and members of different communities gather at a symbolic site in the area, where they share testimonies and participate in a commemorative ritual and a mass.
The Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador research initiative is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Western University, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and the Ontario Research Fund.
Surviving Memory Team Spends the Day with the Six Nations Survivors Secretariat Ground Search Team at the Former Mohawk Institute
The participating members of the Surviving Memory team are all grateful for the opportunity to learn more about the ground-penetrating radar technology their team is using, and to exchange ideas about documenting state violence, supporting survivors, and engaging different generations in memory work. Thank you to Eric, Jesse, and the rest of the Survivors Secretariat team!
The Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador research initiative is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Western University, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and the Ontario Research Fund.
Exchange of Embroiderers from Chalatenango in Morazán
Over three days, an exchange of knowledge took place between the Mujeres Vueltenses Bordadoras de Historias collective and the women embroiderers of the Segundo Montes community in Morazán. The activity was carried out through the initiative and coordination of CÁRITAS.
The event took place in Morazán and brought together more than 30 people from different areas of the community, including adult women, young women, and men. Participants gathered in groups organized by theme, and each group embroidered a small cloth.
Teresa Cruz, an embroiderer and popular educator with MUPI, accompanied these activities. They are part of the project Women’s Cartography of Exile and Repatriation, which is being developed in the department of Chalatenango with women embroiderers and is supported by AECID and the Surviving Memory project.
On August 15, a new meeting was held, during which the previously embroidered cloths were joined into a single piece. Adult women and young women from the Segundo Montes community participated. In addition, five women from the Las Vueltas group attended, coordinated by Teresa Cruz.
In October 2025, another exchange will take place, this time in Las Vueltas, Chalatenango, for the anniversary of the repopulation that took place in 1987.
The Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador research initiative is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Western University, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and the Ontario Research Fund.
Embroiderers Strengthen Community Culture
The Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen [Museum of the Word and Image, MUPI] provided women embroiderers from Las Vueltas, Chalatenango, with equipment for producing artistic textiles as part of a project supported by the Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo [Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation, AECID] and the Surviving Memory project. The collective is creating embroidered works related to the region’s collective memory and ancestral culture.
The equipment was presented by Carlos Henríquez Consalvi, director of MUPI, and Teresa Cruz, a cultural promoter, as part of a process aimed at strengthening the women’s economic autonomy while promoting their cultural rights and recognizing the dignity and importance of their historical role within the community.
Through weekly workshops and community fairs, the collective produces artistic works that portray their personal stories and preserve local myths and legends, traditional games, and ancient rock carvings found in the region. Students from the Las Vueltas Educational Centre have also participated in the process, creating drawings and embroideries based on these themes. These activities reinforce their community identity and encourage younger generations to continue promoting historical memory.
The process contributes to the recognition of the right to a life free from violence and promotes initiatives that preserve and share individual and collective memory, reaffirming the women’s transformative role within their communities.
The Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador research initiative is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Western University, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and the Ontario Research Fund.