Museo Itinerante Historias para la paz 2020-2024

Project Details

Stories for the peace Itinerant Museum 2020-2024

DESCRIPTION

A group of young people tell their stories.

Stories of memory, resistance, and transformation, born in territories shaped by Colombia’s armed conflict.

First came the workshops. Then the stories. Later, a digital comic for peace. Finally, those voices moved beyond the screen and took physical form in a small traveling museum built around their experiences.

The project is part of Storytelling for Peace Buildinga British Council program that supports children and young people in developing narratives of their own. Through this process, 80 participants between the ages of 12 and 23 developed tools to communicate experiences of positive transformation, and 17 of those stories became part of Colombia’s first bilingual digital comic for peace.

The museum emerged as a new form of circulation: a small-scale, portable, multimedia architecture where these stories could be explored, heard, and shared.

We designed a pavilion conceived to travel, to be assembled and dismantled, and to appear again elsewhere.

A family of interlocking timber components forms a freestanding architecture that can be walked through, circled around, and gradually discovered. Two volumes connected by an entrance platform also function as small stepped seating areas, waiting spaces, and open-air forums.

Its enclosures are murals directly illustrated by artists including Felipe Rodríguez, Omar Penagos, and Mierdinsky, transforming the museum’s edges into narrative surfaces. Inside, a video room, an interactive station, and a transitional threshold allow the stories to unfold through audiovisual, graphic, and digital media.

Since its inauguration, the museum traveled through Cartagena, Bogotá, and Cali, taking part in the Hay Festival, the Bogotá International Book Fair, and the Cali International Book Fair. At each stop, it was accompanied by workshops on peace education, storytelling, and memory. More than 10,000 people encountered these stories.

After its final journey, the museum was given a second life. Its two main volumes were separated and reused as part of a new exhibition. Their graphics changed and the pieces were assembled into a new spatial configuration.

The intention was to extend the project’s useful life. Like the stories it carries, the architecture does not end when it is dismantled: it changes form, circulates again, and finds new places from which to continue speaking.

Thanks to Agencia Poliedro for inviting us to design this pavilion and for trusting in an architecture capable of accompanying stories, images, and collective experiences.

Thanks to the British Council for promoting Storytelling for Peace Building. Thanks to Sara for the model and her work on the project.

DETAILS

Use

Memory Exhibition

Type

Pavilion

Duration

Cartagena: 4 days
Bogotá: 12 days
Cali: 11 days

Attendees

8,600

Duration

Structure reused for the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare Pavilion.

Area

26.8 m²

Location

Cartagena, Bolivar
Bogotá D.C. - Colombia
Cali, Valle del Cauca

Average annual temperature

27.6 °C

Year

2019

Client

Polyhedron – British Council

Design

Yemail Architecture

Construction

HyG Studios

Project team

Antonio Yemail + Sara Escobar Aristizabal

Architectural Model

Sara Escobar Aristizabal

Graphic System

Polyhedron – British Council

Photo Credits

Alejandro Arango (Project) – Carlos Andrés Buitrago (Demo)

Categories: Culture