Abstract

This study explores the profound relationship between art, memory, and visual culture, investigating how 
artistic practices mediate remembrance and shape collective identity. Drawing on historical, philosophical, 
and theoretical perspectives, it examines how memory is preserved, challenged, and reimagined through 
visual representation from ancient art and Renaissance iconography to modernist war memorials and 
digital media. Through multidisciplinary lenses, including film, performance, architecture, and digital 
technology, the project highlights how art serves both as a repository and a reactivator of cultural 
memory, especially in the face of trauma, loss, and historical discontinuity. Key case studies, including 
post-Holocaust remembrance, Isabel Allende’s narrative visuality, and the public representation of 
Salvador Allende, underscore the tensions between visibility and erasure, and personal versus collective 
memory. The research further evaluates the complexities of oral, tactile, and visual memory across 
different sensory experiences, emphasizing how image, matter, and space become active agents of 
remembrance. Ultimately, this work argues for a more inclusive and transdisciplinary understanding of 
memory, where visual culture not only commemorates but interrogates and transforms the way societies 
remember and engage with the past.