An unusual exhibition dedicated to a recipe book has been on display at the Casa de la Memoria museum in Medellin. The book – Recetario para la Memoria – pays tribute to victims of forced disappearance, with each recipe linked to a person, a family, an absence and a fight for the truth.
They are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts and uncles. All have lost a loved one in the armed conflict in Colombia. All are still searching for the truth about their disappearances.
So when Spanish-Argentinian photographer Zahara Gomez Lucini asked them to take part in a project in memory of the disappeared, they all agreed.
The artist and activist's book Recetario para la Memoria ("Recipe Book for Remembrance") is an act of resistance.
Families contribute the recipe for the favourite dish of the person they have lost. In this way, Lucini makes those who are absent visible again, and conveys the pain of the families while inviting dialogue.
"I wanted to bring the subject of disappearances back to the table by approaching it in a different way. Not in an academic or technical way," she explains.
"The aim was to extend the debate beyond the circle of experts and journalists. Colombia has a lot to teach us on this subject, whether through its transitional justice for peace or its theatrical and musical works."
The book is the third she has made of its kind, with the first two created with the families of disappeared people in Mexico.
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Forty-four Colombian families joined the project, which is now on display at La Casa de la Memoria museum in Medellin.
The museum has installed a typical Colombian kitchen in the centre of its exhibition space. There's a refrigerator, kitchen utensils and a wood-burning stove, and a table of ingredients, plates and bowls.
On the walls, panels display recipes accompanied by two photos: one of the dish and the other of the person who cooked it, a relative of a victim of enforced disappearance.
Patricia Zapata took part in the project for her nephew Jorge, who disappeared in 2017.
"He was a rap singer. He had gone out to shoot the video for his latest song. And since then, there has been no news. I prepared red beans from Antioquia. They are served with plantains, rice, an egg and chicharrons – fried pork rinds."
Patricia is part of a collective which organises regular demonstrations in memory of those who have disappeared. "It's hard. Very hard. And there are moments, like this exhibition, that break our hearts, but it's necessary."
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'Restoring humanity'
After the exhibition's opening, the public were invited to share a meal with the victims' families.
A cooking workshop was also organised for students at the Universidad National of Medellin.
Valery Giraldo, a history student who took part, said: "It was a very good initiative. It's another way of telling these stories of disappearance that we tend to forget. Above all, I listened to their stories. I am really very moved."
Among the cooks that day was Maria Eugenia Naranjo. She lost her son in 2019.
"We made three dishes: soup, pasta and beans. At first, the project seemed strange to me. But I quickly realised that it was important. It reminds society of our need to discover the truth about the disappearance of our loved ones. It's hard to live with uncertainty about their fate."
Alongside the Colombian families is Viviana Mendoza, a Mexican buscadora (a "searcher") who was part of Gomez Lucini's first recipe book. She is participating in the Colombian project to show that the fight for the truth crosses borders.
"My brother Manuel disappeared in 2018. Armed men came to his home and took him away. I continue to search for him myself in the mass graves. Here, I have prepared a caldo de espinazo [a pork soup] to restore my brother's humanity. Because we quickly forget that they are human beings, not just names or numbers. We have normalised violence and horror too much."
In Colombia, according to the latest report from the Search Unit for Missing Persons in 2025, 132,877 people have been reported missing due to the armed conflict.
After the signing of the peace agreement between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group in 2016, the International Committee of the Red Cross documented more than 2,000 additional cases.
This article was adapted from the original version in French by Najet Benrabaa, RFI's correspondent in Bogota.
