Guerrilla Memory. How Street Art and Play can Engrave the Memory of Martyrs in the Urban Spaces

This paper introduces the concept of guerrilla memory as a strategy for transmitting historical memory that: 1) makes use of unconventional communication techniques, 2) moves the space/time dedicated to the memory in everyday life and 3) focuses on a humanized take on the events, often embodied by one or more martyrs. The paper, after introducing this concept, offers background on the semiotic studies of urban spaces and memory, thereby delimiting a framework of analysis. This framework is then applied to several case studies: three dealing with street art (the murals dedicated to Giusepper Prono by Zerocalcare, the Stolpertein by the German artist Gunter Demning and the Memorial Bridge situated in Rijeka, Croatia) and three with games and play (the digital game September 12, the historical re–enactment of a Nazi raid in Venaria and the larp Ultimo Covo). The conclusions focus on how these systems offer several enticing and novel tools for the transmission of memory