Architecture Students Engage in Community Memory Work in Chalatenango
From 24 January to 8 February 2026, seven master students from the KU Leuven Faculty of Architecture travelled to El Salvador for an intensive fieldwork period that will shape their master thesis projects. Each student is developing an architectural proposal for a memory space linked to a massacre site in Chalatenango. This year, the focus lies on Guinda de Mayo, Guancora, Casa de la Memoria [Memory House], and El Alto, where they had the opportunity to listen to testimonies and engage with community members.
During the trip, the students participated in a workshop led by María Laura Flores Barba and Victor Fallon Macal Guerra, in collaboration with Colectivo Bordando Historia [Embroidering History Collective] in Las Vueltas. The students produced drawings based on archival photographs of Las Vueltas, which will be embroidered onto “Hamacas para las Almas” [Hammocks for Souls], an ongoing art installation by Victor Fallon Macal Guerra.
The students’ itinerary also connected them to the ongoing architectural projects. In Las Aradas, they visited the recently completed memorial project and experienced its significance first-hand. In El Higueral, they joined a community meeting to prepare the upcoming construction of five memorial columns, developed in close collaboration with survivors and community members. Finally, at San José Las Flores Casa de la Memoria, they assisted mounting the new exhibition “Obras de Memorias” [Works of Memories], thus inscribing themselves in the ongoing and evolving process of the Casa project.
This latest exhibition brings together artistic works inspired by historical memory and shows ongoing architectural research for several massacre sites. The exhibition features contributions from both Salvadoran and international artists, including Antonio Romero and Colectivo Matiz . To mark the opening, the students painted a new mural on the facade of the Casa.
This two-week journey offered the students a chance to witness the strength of community-led memory work, contribute in small but meaningful ways, and reflect on the role architecture can play in supporting processes of remembrance.
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, KU Leuven, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and the Ontario Research Fund.
Surviving Memory’s Economic Reconstruction Project Advances Through Research Activities, Academic Output, and Institutional Coordination
Between November 2024 and January 2026, Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador’s Economic Reconstruction project in Chalatenango (ERES) – led by Aarhus professor and Salvadoran Australian, Vladimir Pacheco Cueva – made significant progress, combining community training, academic production, and institutional coordination. During the first stage (November 2024–May 2025), the team carried out a training process for community leaders from San José Las Flores, Las Vueltas, and Nueva Trinidad. This course, delivered in a hybrid format over eight weeks and concluded with an intensive workshop, graduated eight participants from key organizations in Chalatenango, including the Asociación Fundación para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Comunal de El Salvador [Foundation Association for Cooperation and Communal Development of El Salvador, CORDES], the Asociación de Comunidades para el Desarrollo de Chalatenango [Association of Communities for the Development of Chalatenango, CCR], the Asociación Sumpul [Sumpul Association], the Casa Museo Jon Cortina [Jon Cortina House Museum], and the Asociación Tiempos Nuevos Teatro [New Times Theatre Association, TNT].
At the same time, the project’s academic dimension was strengthened through the publication of a chapter on the political situation in El Salvador, which analyzes continuities and ruptures in a context marked by political radicalization and environmental fragility.
In a second stage (May 2025–January 2026), the focus expanded toward strengthening organizational capacities and generating applied research. The team carried out a new eight-week training program with the organization Medios de Vida Sostenible para la Juventud de Arcatao [Sustainable Livelihoods for the Youth of Arcatao, MVSJA], focused on project management. This process not only trained six community participants, but also culminated in the development of a research plan that will guide MVSJA’s actions during 2026 and 2027. In terms of outreach, there was progress in presenting work on the impact of Bitcoin in El Salvador, including a podcast version produced at Aarhus University.
Finally, a memorandum of understanding was established between Aarhus University and the consulting firm AMO, opening opportunities for pro bono technical training and an organizational assessment for MVSJA. Together, these achievements reflect a sustained effort to link historical memory, local development, and the production of critical knowledge.
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, Aarhus University, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and the Ontario Research Fund.
Digitizing the CERLAC Solidarity Collections
As part of the Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador project, a research team of 7 undergrad students coordinated by Western University Postdoctoral fellow Giada Ferrucci has been undertaking a long-term initiative to scan, digitize, and catalogue archival materials documenting North American solidarity with El Salvador during the 1980s and 1990s. Working with the collections held at the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC) at York University, the team is carrying out the systematic scanning of documents, photographs, posters, and campaign materials, while also developing detailed metadata to facilitate future research and public access.
At this stage, the digitized collection includes 14 boxes, 262 folders, and approximately 6,216 documents across the 14 boxes that have been scanned.
A collaborative workshop held in Toronto on January 31, 2025 brought together researchers, students, and community members to explore these materials collectively and reflect on the histories they document. Participants reviewed archival items produced by solidarity organizations that mobilized support for human rights during the Salvadoran Civil War and discussed the ongoing importance of preserving these records. This digitization effort ensures that the histories of international solidarity remain accessible and continue to inform contemporary movements for justice and human rights.
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.
Workshop “The Loretto Sisters: A Story in Photographs” in Las Vueltas
On January 30, 2026, a workshop was held in Las Vueltas with the participation of the Mujeres bordadoras de Las Vueltas [Women embroiderers of Las Vueltas] collective. The session was facilitated by María Laura Flores Barba (postdoctoral researcher), Víctor Fallon Macal Guerra (artist and project collaborator), and Teresa Cruz (leader of the embroidery collective).
The workshop focused on photographs taken by Sister Evanne Hunter, a member of the Loretto Sisters in Toronto, during her visits to El Salvador between 1989 and 1994, in the context of postwar repopulation processes. These images are part of an archive donated to Surviving Memory, which includes six photo albums organized chronologically and accompanied by captions.
The day began with a small exhibition of the photographs at the community center. Participants then worked together to identify people and places depicted in the images, using sticky notes and collaborating with the facilitation team and graduate students from the KU Leuven Master’s program in Architecture. The group later walked through the town, comparing the photographs with the present-day landscape and identifying sites such as the main street, the school, and several houses that still stand.
In the afternoon, Víctor Fallon presented his artistic project “Hamacas para almas” [Hammocks for Souls]. As part of the workshop, participants selected five photographs to embroider collectively onto a hammock, bringing together memory, image, and textile practice. This piece will become part of an ongoing body of work that the artist will continue developing in collaboration with other communities.
The workshop also aimed to introduce this archive to the local community and support the development of a digital platform where people in El Salvador and abroad can explore the albums and help identify individuals and places. In the future, this tool will also help generate metadata for the rest of the collection, which includes additional photographs and historical documents.
“Hamacas para almas” is on display at the Casa de la Memoria in San José Las Flores as part of the exhibition “Art and Architecture”, curated by the Belgian architecture 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.
Rethinking Intergenerational Trauma, an article about forced migration and violence
¿How do forced Central American migrants and their children make sense of violence’s aftereffects, and how do those aftereffects shape their lives? The “Rethinking Intergenerational Trauma” article explores this question through oral histories with twenty-one people of Salvadorian, Guatemalan, Honduran, and Nicaraguan backgrounds who were born in Canada or arrived at a young age. The interdisciplinary author team includes Giovanni Hernandez-Carranza, Morgan Poteet, Juan Carlos Jimenez, and Veronica Escobar Olivo.
The authors use a coloniality lens and a community-based approach to understand how people interpret family histories of violence in the present, and how those interpretations shape relationships and identity. They utilize a narrative analysis of in-depth interviews because the approach “centers participants' voices and emphasizes the co-creation of knowledge."
The article also shows how dominant Western psychological frameworks can narrow how people explain harm and coping. As the authors note, “participants relied on Eurocentric ideas of ‘trauma’ to understand violence’s aftereffects,” which can lead to “individualization, psychologization, and pathologization” of struggles that also have social and historical roots. The discussion points instead toward decolonial community organizing and non-Western ways of healing that reconnect people with community ties, cultural knowledge, and shared meaning-making.
Documenting the Salvadoran Diaspora in Canada
Through a long-term collaboration with the Salvadoran Canadian Association (ASALCA), the Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador project has been documenting the experiences, histories, and contributions of the Salvadoran diaspora in Canada. Through interviews, oral history recordings, and community conversations, the project explores migration histories, the political and social drivers of displacement, cultural identity, and the ways Salvadoran communities in Canada have preserved historical memory while building new forms of community life. These interviews highlight personal narratives of migration, solidarity activism, cultural heritage, and the ongoing connections between diaspora communities and El Salvador.
This research contributes to multiple community-based outputs developed in collaboration with Salvadoran community organizations. One major outcome will be a collaborative community book that documents the history, resilience, and cultural contributions of Salvadorans in Canada through testimonies, archival materials, photographs, and historical reflections. The research also contributes to the development of a future digital museum dedicated to Salvadoran migration and heritage in Canada, which will bring together oral histories, photographs, archival documents, and multimedia materials to create an accessible public resource preserving the collective memory of the Salvadoran diaspora.
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.
“The Lasting Legacy of the Salvadoran Civil War on Environment and Health,” an essay by Amaan Thawer
Surviving Memory research assistant Amaan Thawer has published the essay “The Lasting Legacy of the Salvadoran Civil War on Environment and Health” on the Planetary Health Alliance website this November 2025.
In the piece, Thawer examines El Salvador’s ongoing environmental crisis and its deep connections to the country’s Civil War (1979–1992). He analyzes the current state of pollution, deforestation, and intensive agrochemical use, arguing that these problems cannot be understood in isolation from the violence and displacement of the war. “Much like other social and ecological vulnerabilities, El Salvador’s current environmental fragility is deeply rooted in the trauma and destruction of its civil war,” he writes.
The essay also highlights the work of the Centro Salvadoreño de Tecnología Apropiada [Salvadoran Center for Appropriate Technology,CESTA], which denounces environmental harm caused by industries and governments while promoting practical alternatives such as cycling, composting organic waste, recycling, and forest protection. Thawer draws on insights from CESTA director Dr. Ricardo Navarro, who has long documented war-related environmental damage. “Among the most destructive tactics employed during the war was the scorched-earth strategy – an ecocidal approach involving widespread aerial bombardments using napalm and white phosphorus to incinerate forests and campesino farmlands,” Thawer notes. “Ecological destruction wasn’t incidental; it was instrumentalized to break communities’ capacity to survive.”
Photo by Amaan Thawer during his time on Tasajera Island, El Salvador.
“Con un gran amor”: Photos, Stories, and Reflections from Postwar El Salvador — CRS/CERLAC seminar at York University, November 12
Members of the Surviving Memory team will present “‘Con un gran amor’: Photos, Stories, and Reflections from Postwar El Salvador” in a hybrid seminar at York University on Wednesday, November 12, 2025. Speakers include Adriana Alas, Giada Ferrucci, and Amanda Grzyb (Western University); Morgan Poteet (Mount Allison University); and Jocelyn Torres (York University). The event is organized by the Centre for Refugee Studies (CRS) and the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC). Join in person or via Zoom.
Abstract
This seminar explores the use of Photovoice as a creative participatory research and community engagement method within the Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador project. Photovoice is an accessible and flexible method that allows participants to document issues, identify strengths, and direct action within their communities. We engaged with survivors and community collaborators using Photovoice to explore memory, identity, and resilience in postwar El Salvador. This presentation will show and reflect on Photovoice projects from three different communities in El Salvador that highlighted themes of mental health, community and gendered memory, urbanization, and the natural environment variously within each context and the wider historical context of El Salvador.
Event details
When: Wednesday, November 12, 2025, 11:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m. (Toronto).
Where: In person – Room 280N, York Lanes, Keele Campus, York University; Zoom (registration required): https://yorku.zoom.us/meeting/register/H2uotL1VRxiLZGGTjE_qBQju
Join Joel Martínez-Lorenzana’s PhD online public lecture about Salvadoran community music on October 15
Innovative approaches to Salvadoran community music are the topic of Joel Martínez-Lorenzana’s PhD public lecture on Wednesday, October 15, 2025. He will give the presentation, “Community Music, Peacebuilding, and Historical Memory in El Salvador: Three Case Studies,” online, starting at 11:30 a.m. EDT (UTC−4).
RSVP to jmart488@uwo.ca for the videoconference link.
About Joel
Joel Martínez-Lorenzana worked for ten years as a faculty member in the Art Department at the National Autonomous University of Honduras and coordinated its Bachelor of Music program from 2016 to 2019. In May 2021, Martínez completed a master’s degree in Piano Performance and Pedagogy at Arizona State University, U.S. In the fall of the same year, he began a PhD in Music Education at Western University, Canada. His research explores innovative approaches to music teaching and learning, imagining ways to transform, transgress, and delink music from practices that oppress and render diverse groups invisible.
New Postdoc Dr. María Laura Flores Barba joins the Surviving Memory Team
“Serendipity.” That’s how Mexican art historian Dr. María Laura Flores Barba describes first hearing about Surviving Memory. In September 2017, while teaching a beginner Spanish class, project founder Amanda Grzyb audited a few sessions. They stayed in touch. Dr. Flores Barba became a research assistant, joined fieldwork, and began rethinking how her work connects past and present—treating people in historical records as members of real communities.
In El Salvador, she spoke with survivors and families about what they lived through. The experience highlighted how local networks help people process the past and organize for the future. “I started talking to people, understanding what happened to them. And I loved doing fieldwork,” she says. “As a Latin American, I knew about Central American conflicts in general, but I learned about the Salvadoran Civil War directly from those who experienced it.”
Back in Canada, she revisited her PhD on colonial Mexican painters with a focus on relationships and networks, not only artworks and dates. That shift led to a digital database mapping 17th–18th century Mexican painters through their social ties, so they appear as people, not just subjects of study. You can explore the research outline and interactive map here.
With her PhD completed in June 2025, Dr. Flores Barba is beginning a two-year Western Postdoctoral Fellow with Surviving Memory. She is working on three connected projects:
1) Community-sourced photo archive
She is coordinating crowdsourced metadata for a digital archive of photographs of the Loreto Sisters, a Toronto-based group of nuns that supported community rebuilding in El Salvador. The archive will let Salvadorans identify people and places and add context and stories.
2) Copapayo Village history book
She is supporting local community leader and historian Otilio Ayala on a book about the history of Copapayo, a village destroyed during the war and the site of a massacre, with an emphasis on accessible documentation that centers community accounts.
3) Virtual reconstruction
Working with the map librarian at Western University Libraries, she is helping turn Copapayo’s community memory into structured data—where houses stood, how streets were organized, and what daily life looked like before the war. Community workshops will present and discuss previews to help ensure a faithful virtual reconstruction of the village.
Among learning from different experiences, hearing tough stories of the past and finding creative ways to represent them and bring them to the present, Dr. Flores Barba is most excited to keep creating connections and working with the team. “As a historian, I used to work individually. We just go to an archive and write our things, and we don't really share much,” she remembers. “Now, I have discussions with the team, we think together and try to solve a problem together. It is teamwork and collaborative work to the fullest. And I love it. I like people and I like connecting.”
