Arts-based practices of slow memory around mental suffering: An analysis of the Argentinian collaborative film project Los fuegos internos (2019)

This article studies how arts-based practices contribute to reconfiguring collective memory around mental suffering in Latin America, focusing on the Argentinian collaborative film Los fuegos internos as an exemplary case of slow memory work. We argue that the film foregrounds memories and stories often marginalized or dismissed, intervening in social exclusions through which certain lives are rendered less grievable and less visible in collective memory. As a collaborative creation, Los fuegos internos integrates participants with lived experience of psychiatric hospitalization as protagonists, artists, and co-producers. In doing so, it affirms their role as creators of collective memory, enabling them to exercise agency in representing personal stories and memories. Our analysis highlights how the film transforms deeply individual experiences into shared artistic expressions (e.g. poetry and dance) that others can witness. In this way, Los fuegos internos exemplifies how arts-based practices can gradually reshape collective memory.