Patrimoines, mémoires et politiques

Journal "Polygraphe(s), approche métissée des actes graphiques", n° 7/2025

Polygraphes, approches métissées des actes graphiques n°7 — © Éditions de la MSH

What links graphic arts to collective memory?

This new issue of Polygraphe(s) issue explores how inscriptions, images and writings become vectors of memory, objects of heritage preservation, and even tools for protest. It traces the graphic uses of the past to the present day, between transmission, erasure and reappropriation.

Media, tools and vectors of memory

Graphic acts are simultaneously media, tools and vectors of memory, from their production to their preservation as heritage. Whether images or signs on walls or objects, selective or comprehensive writings, these graphic productions transmit and record narratives, stories and knowledge that construct the collective memory of human societies or are mobilised in political or heritage strategies.

Between production, transmission and heritage preservation

The 7th issue of the Polygraphe(s) journal thus examines the relationship between graphic acts and memory in the context of their production. It also aims to address the strategies and processes involved in the heritage preservation of graphic acts from prehistory to the present day, and more generally the motivations for perpetuating these graphic acts, which in certain contexts may have been contested, ignored or damaged by their contemporaries.

Heritage is no longer simply a collection of objects, monuments, knowledge or technical or social practices that have remained unchanged over time. Today, it encompasses the plurality of relationships and emotions that these objects, monuments and practices evoke in a diverse range of individuals. These testimonies of the past express the social ties they maintained at the time of their existence and the ways in which they still influence our actions and thoughts. Some may have been produced with the express intention of passing on a story or a trace for the future; others, on the contrary, did not necessarily have any desire to be preserved at the time of their creation, and it is only after their discovery or revelation that they become bearers of specific knowledge.

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