Carlos Henríquez Consalvi Venezuela/El Salvador

Carlos Henríquez Consalvi is the founder and director of Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen (Museum for Word and Image), which is devoted to El Salvador’s cultural heritage. He is also a journalist and radio-maker. Consalvi received the Award as a tribute to his merits as a journalist, for creating space and freedom, and for his efforts to sustain collective memory and to emphasise its importance in the reconstruction of Salvadoran society. Carlos Henríquez Consalvi is the founder of the Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen (Museum of Word and Image), which is committed to the investigation, rescue, preservation and public exhibition of El Salvador’s history and culture. A journalist and broadcaster, Consalvi moved to El Salvador in 1980 to set up Radio Venceremos, an underground broadcasting network for the forces opposing dictatorship. He worked in extremely difficult conditions to make Radio Venceremos a reliable source of oppositional information. Following peace in 1992, Consalvi recognised the importance of memory in building a new society. He motivated people to document their experiences to ensure that the reasons and the trauma of the civil war should not be forgotten, gathering testimonies, photos and items related to the war. The project was also expanded to include other important historical and cultural memories, and in 1996, he established this unique collection of material, including the complete Radio Venceremos archives, as a public resource. The museum calls attention to the role of memory, social justice, marginal and non-official histories, human rights and peace through important debates, exhibitions and publications. Carlos Henríquez Consalvi is awarded for his outstanding work as a broadcaster, for creating spaces of freedom, and for his commitment to the promotion of memory and its active role in the reconstruction of Salvadoran society.

2008 Awards Book here.