The Nanjing Massacre Memorial and Angelus Novus: Ephemera, Trauma, and Reparation in Contemporary Chinese Public Art

From Firenze University Press Journal: Aisthesis

Andrea Baldini, Alliance University

In a famous article, Arthur Danto wrote that we «build memo-rials so that we shall never forget» (Danto [1998]: 153). Memori-als in effect play a special role in shaping and reshaping our collec-tive memories and histories. If monuments celebrate triumphs and heroes, memorials often pay a tribute to those who have fallen under tragic circumstances. «The memorial is a special precinct, extrud-ed from life, a segregated enclave where we honor the [defeated] dead» (Danto [1998]: 153). A place of remembering, memorials are somber respites from daily concerns where we contemplate sacrifices, wounds, and tragedies influencing our identities as a nation or a community.

For Danto, memorials and ephemera appear to be irreconcilable entities. As artifacts designed to prevent stories from fading away, memorials need to be durable: their struc-tures and messages must be able to survive the passing of time to serve as beacons of the past. On the contrary, ephemera such as flyers, menus, and postcards are short-lived entities. They are not intended or expected to outlast the here and now. If there is a connection between memorials and ephemera, it seems merely one of the opposing variety.However, such an understanding of ephemerality and memorialization overlooks the temporal possibilities unleashed by experiential memorials. This variety of memorials emphasizes viewers’ engagement as a key moment of meaning-making. Through the performative interaction between structural elements and visitors, experiential memorials acquire an unstable significance, which is constantly re-described in response to the evolving historical and contextual circumstances of reception.

Rather than fixed structures of meaning, experiential memorials are unstable careers — an assembly of snapshots, if you wish — whose overall significance importantly depends on viewers’ performative engagement. Seen under this light, there is a closer connection between ephemera and memorials that one could antici-pate. My main objective in this paper is then to re-theorize practices of memorialization and the role of ephemerality in them. I argue that experiential memorials are better understood as (collections of ) ephemera. I provide evidence for my thesis by developing a critical interpretation of a Chi-nese example of experiential memorial: Qi Kang’s Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall (NMMH). The fragmented nature of the here and now frees visi-tors’ experiences. Like the wind propelling Benja-min’s Angelus Novus into the future and progress, the ephemerality of NMMH’s experience unchains its significance from the constriction of dominant narratives of vengeance and resentment.

This in turn opens up possibilities for healing from the social trauma that the 1937 massacre inflicted upon the Chinese, while remodeling memories of the Japanese invasion. These possibilities are inclu-sive, and may help Chinese and Japanese people reimagine new ways of «being-together» (Nancy [2000]). If liberated temporally, the experience of memorials may help us not only to never for-get, as Danto points out, but also to find recon-ciliation, forgiveness, and mutual regard. In the following section, I offer a vivid description of NMMH, providing historical details of the con-text of its construction, which are relevant to this discussion. Then, I argue that NMMH — as well as other experiential memorials — is a collection of ephemera. In developing my argument, I also show how the ephemeral nature of NMMH pro-motes healing. Finally, the paper addresses issues of reconciliation and reparation in Sino-Japanese relationship.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/Aisthesis-13581

Read Full Text: https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/aisthesis/article/view/13581