Neither Forgive Nor Forget (2010)
Neither Forgive Nor Forget (Lima, Perú; 2010)
Was a public intervention in the streets of Lima, Peru for which plastic collars with the phrase “Ni perdón, ni olvido” were placed on 60 street dogs who wandered the streets of Lima arousing the historical memory of the Peruvian people. The action was meant to recall an act of propaganda carried out by the Shining Path (“Sendero Luminoso”) wherein they assassinated, flayed, and public displayed the mutilated corpses of hundreds of dogs alongside signs with anti-Fujimori phrases and slogans. A brutal way to upset supporters of Fujimorism. A condemnable strategy.
At the time of the intervention many people were deeply involved (still/again) in struggles against Fujimori’s dictatorship. The dogs managed to act as reminders to those who had been in the middle of an extremely violent struggle which claimed hundreds of innocent lives and forced farm workers from the affected regions to take sides in an attempt to avoid being massacred but whom, in many cases, ended up being massacred all the same.
