1968: Israeli artist creates monument to remember the victims of the Tlatelolco massacre

Myrthokleia González

is placing her feet on fresh concrete, she's wearing old sneakers. She stops and stares at her own footprints, she takes a deep breath, she looks around her and finds herself among 17 other women and men, next to her, who were also part of the 1968 students' movement.

All their footprints will be part of the Absence Monument (Monumento a la Ausencia) , created by the Israeli artist, Yael Bartana . The monument was created as part of the collective compensation ruled by the Victim Attention Executive Commission (CEAV) , formed by the federal government, in collaboration with the Tlatelolco University Cultural Center, UNAM .

Myrthokleia

was part of the National Strike Council (CNH) and attended the October 2 demonstration, she was near the Chihuahua building. She was giving the floor to the speakers when the flares blinded the sky and the gunshots started. She explains how that afternoon, after the shooting, they dragged her out of there and she ended up in a Red Cross ambulance with others.

She arrived at the CCUT to tell her story to the Israeli artist, and to take part in this artistic intervention , which consists of using cement on the CCUT 's backyard, to imprint 400 pairs of footprints, a number that, according to the organizers, was said to be the highest number of fatal victims on October 2 . Now, according to reports, the number of deaths is 78.

The footprint impression was done between September 28 and 29. The monument was chosen out of 10 artistic proposals from countries such as Guatemala, Peru, Brazil, Israel , and Mexico . Bartana 's project was chosen by an international jury, formed by art historians Harriet Senie and George Flaherty , the curator Taiyana Pimentel , and the artist Regina-José Galindo.

The intervention will be part of a documentary .

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