Preamble Narratives and Social Memory - Universidade do Minho

Drawings and Narrative: the Inmates Memory and Experience (At the Prison of Monsanto)Mariana CarroloFigure 5 – Hand & Model Exercise (2009). Through a direct observation of the objects, configuration and different naturesare registered – body notion: the part and the whole (Anonymous).Lastly, we worked the inmates’ prison space perception (space, configuration anddimensions) and their representation and record ability regarding this same space (Prisonof Monsanto). The inmates were asked to draw their cells and the prison, considering differentbuilding levels (plans) they might have known. The exercise was formulated withoutinstructions related to the way the inmate should proceed and approach the theme, as wellas without any expressive limitations regarding the contents – it was not asked any specificmodel of representation (plans, perspective, views).The exercise aim is to understand, through the carried communicational products, theimpact of the Power in this subject (A). His artistic ability to communicate and represent theperceptions and what he lived (B). And to think about how Art participates in the knowledgebuilding and consequentially informs the Power and how it works, reciprocally, as a vehicleof Expression and Communication, Art and the Inmates (Witness) build a personal and socialidentity narrative about these actors and the reclusion (C).Figure 6 – Cell I (2009). Architectural Plan Representation. No Scale. (Anonymous).Narratives and social memory: theoretical and methodological approaches305