Memorias de ti tells the story of family members and survivors of the political genocide against the Patriotic Union (Union Patriotica). The UP was a progressive party created in 1985 out of peace agreements between the insurgency and the government. Since its creation in 1985, the wave of state sponsored violence has claimed more than 5,000 of their lives. The objective of this collection is to emphasize the power of memory as a tool of resistance and hope.
Memorias de ti, is a collection of works by photographer Pablo Serrano and muralist Erin Yoshi completed in 2009. The collection is part of a much lager project called Memoria Viva, of the Colombian Human Rights organization, REINICIAR.
The UP was born as a broad movement of democratic convergence, in opposition to the in liberal-conservative proposal , who were the traditional and exclusive actors in the Colombian political life so far. In March 1986 (its first year of participation in elections), the UP won the highest vote in the history of leftist parties.
In those elections UP won 5 senators, 9 member of the Chamber of Representatives, 14 departmental deputies, 351 mayors and 23 municipal councilors. Given this first electoral success, powerful economic sectors, influential groups of traditional parties and sectors of government and the military forces designed a genocidal strategy to remove this nascent opposition force from the political spectrum.