Castle of Innocence
(2019 – 2023)
“Castle of Innocence” examines the Children’s Museum of Costa Rica as a contested site of memory, power,
and identity. Built upon the foundations of the former central prison, the building now functions as an imaginative educational space, concealing its traumatic past beneath layers of playful artifice.
The museum becomes a stage where fact and fiction collide, the space serves as a focal point for investigating the mechanisms through which institutions shape collective memory, exposing the constructed nature of historical narratives and the power dynamics embedded within them.
By engaging with archival material from the prison era and diverse elements from the museum, the project challenges the authenticity of photographic representation, questioning the medium’s capacity to represent truth and revealing how images can be manipulated to reinforce or subvert dominant narratives.
Through a non-linear approach, the project invites a critical examination of the strategies through which knowledge, history, and cultural heritage are produced, disseminated, and consumed. By interrogating the boundaries between protection and control, it seeks to illuminate the complexities of constructing and contesting collective memory in a post-truth landscape.
