Towards a transformative memory of wartime sexualized violence? The 'violence and gender' exhibition at Dresden's military history museum of the army

This article asks how museums can mobilize memories of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) for progressive social ends. My case study is the 'Violence and Gender' exhibition, which ran at the Military History Museum of the Army in Dresden, Germany, in 2018. First, I introduce the memorial context, demonstrating the persistence of 'conservative' tropes that use memories of women's suffering to buttress patriarchal and national agendas. Subsequently, I investigate how 'Violence and Gender' dislodges these conservative frames, focusing on its inclusion of complex victims and the links drawn between historical conflict and broader cultures of violence. Such contextualization and heterogeneity are key to 'transformative memory'. I develop this term with reference to a recent scholarship on transitional justice to highlight the need for memory initiatives that broaden societal understandings of the forms and roots of CRSV, contributing both to more inclusive justice and to efforts to combat gendered violence and discrimination in the present. In view of its scope, 'Violence and Gender' offers the chance to reflect on the potential and pitfalls of various strategies for challenging visitors to check their assumptions and recognize their implications in global networks of insecurity and violence.