Nie-miejsca pamięci i ich nie-ludzkie pomniki
Non-Places of Memory and Their Non-Human Monuments

Summary/Abstract: Sendyka proposes an alternative conceptualization of commemoration through monuments. If monuments are understood as ways of ‘arresting the processes of forgetting,’ then the concept of monument can extend to all objects that reference or mark out significant historical landmarks in such a way as to facilitate their recognition or to initiate actions (preservation, research, commemoration) that make their meaning public. Thus we might analyse not only symbolic and iconic structures, which form the traditional focus for researchers, but also indexical objects: indicators and symptoms. Their materiality can be diverse, including living and nonliving things taken from nature, as well as objects (especially degraded ones). What is more, performative practices (gestures) can come into play, which is why this concept can be supported by research in the field of posthumanism and performance. To refer to this category of ‘minimal monument-gestures’ Sendyka proposes a recent addition to debates in the humanities, namely ‘forensic monuments,’ which alludes to the term forensis in the sense of ‘in relation to a common forum’. The aim of forensic monuments would be to indicate a significant landmark, to preserve it from any devastation that would prevent commemoration, to study it to and initiate explanatory (or forensic) procedures.

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