Paper short abstract:

In this work, an absence of public memory becomes accountable through visual anthropology. Leaning on the power of the visual as a way to generate knowledge and study cultural meaning, urban places, spaces, and environments present opportunities to study the ways we are presented with memorable forms of people and events. By thinking of absence as not what has been erased, silenced, or removed, but through its active role, a space with its own powerful presence, absence may be "seen" to have its own voice.

Paper long abstract:

This paper looks at public memory and how it is presented in the present; further, I ask how it is present for some and not for others.  What happens when historical experiences have been documented and studied, but not brought into the public sphere of memory?

Anthropology provides a way to account for the past in the present through remains and representations.  My case study examines how public memory circulates in the present through an ethnographic account of the city of Thessaloniki, in the Balkan area of Macedonia, in Greece.  I explore the ways cities present their past to the public through visual representations and context, working to create a public identity.  Its citizens are asked to accept this presentation. I consider public memory as a form of public discourse and look at the elements of public discourse that contribute to public memory. Material artifacts act as keepers of memory, representatives of the past, and persuasive visual symbols. Intentionally left out histories remain absent from public memory, but what remains unrepresented proves equally important in creating and reinforcing memory.