A/HRC/25/49 artists are often able to introduce elements that spark discussions; educators are also key stakeholders. Positive processes of memorialization encourage critical thinking around history and in a variety of contexts, memorials can use creative ways to catalyse this civic engagement by opening new opportunities for dialogue about threats to human rights and what people can do to address them.33 65. In several countries, secret places of torture have been converted into public places embodying the aspirations for justice and democracy that provide people with opportunities to exercise their own critical thinking and revisit the accepted interpretation of the past. For example, in Italy, the Monte Sole Peace School was built on the site where SS troops killed 770 civilians. The school invites young people from conflict-affected societies to gather and reflect on the past in order to prevent further atrocities.34 The role of the State is to ensure that sites of atrocities become sites of knowledge; too often, however, such sites are closed to the public, or destroyed along with the evidence documenting the atrocities. F. The role of artists 66. The form of a monument is a crucial factor in determining its social impact and many artists have worked on the conjunction of aesthetics and ideology.35 Hence, artists, especially those commissioned to work on monuments, may be significant actors in memorialization processes. Their capacity to shed new light on the past and to enhance the ability of people to “imagine” the other enables artists to play a crucial role in memorialization processes.36 Focusing on “concrete others”, artistic expressions can make victims visible: “they can raise awareness of the depth, breadth and effects of rights violations in a way that other forms of communication can hardly aspire to, including not only cold statistical data but also official truth commission reports.”37 67. Involving artists offers opportunities to widen the debate regarding the meaning, and hence all other aspects, of a memorial. For example, the anti-monument movement was a radical attempt by some artists to deal with the issue of representing mass human right violations after 1945. Seeking a form opposed to the monumental architecture of the fascist regimes, one emblematic realization was the anti-fascist monument near Hamburg by Jochen and Esther Gerz. Built in 1986, this 12 metre-high column was designed to gradually sink into the ground as visitors signed their names or embellished it with graffiti. Finally buried in 1993, the column was intended to convey a simple message: only people – not memorials – can resist the resurgence of fascism. 68. Some artists find it difficult to engage in commissioned art for memorials because they seek to build memorials from the viewpoint of the subjugated, not those in power. Their dilemma is whether to negotiate with State authorities over the meaning and form of a specific memorial, or simply use public space to counter an official or dominant narrative. Today, many memorials draw on avant-garde notions of the role of art and the artist in 33 34 35 36 37 14 Sebastian Brett and others, Memorialization and Democracy: State Policy and Civic Action, p. 7. Ibid. See Chiara Bertini, Janis Schroeder et Roxane Bovet, “Avez-vous déjà remarqué l’Immigré?”, Genève, Les monuments de la discorde, 12–26 February 2013, available from http://head.hesge.ch/ccc/wpcontent/uploads/2013/10/pimpa_article_etudiants02_supplement_HEAD.pdf. Amos Oz, How to cure a fanatic (London, Vintage Books, 2012). Pablo de Greiff, “On making the invisible visible: the role of cultural interventions in transitional justice processes”.