Ingrid Betancourt Delivers Annual Eva Holtby Lecture at the ROM

Ingrid Betancourt Delivers Annual
Eva Holtby Lecture at the ROM

The Institute for Contemporary Culture (ICC) at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) presents the seventh annual Eva Holtby Lecture on Contemporary Culture on Monday, December 10, 2012. This year’s lecture titled Even Silence Has an End features Ingrid Betancourt, who will tell her story of captivity in the Colombian jungle, sharing powerful teachings on resilience, resistance, and faith.

This year’s event continues to explore ICC at the ROM’s ongoing theme of War and Conflict and coincides with the current exhibition Observance and Memorial: Photographs from S21, Cambodia.

Born in Bogotá and raised in France, Ingrid Betancourt returned to Colombia at the age of 32 to campaign as a candidate in the Colombian presidential election. In 2002, she was abducted by the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) and spent the next six and a half years in the depths of the jungle as a prisoner.

Betancourt’s lecture at the ROM, which shares the name of her most recent book, Even Silence Has an End, is her deeply personal and moving account of that time. Set free in 2008 by the Colombian army, today Betancourt is determined to draw attention to the plight of hostages and victims of terrorism throughout the world.

VIP tickets are $50 and include priority seating as well as access to an exclusive reception following the lecture. General admission tickets are $25 ($23 for ROM Members and $21 for Friends of the ICC) and can be purchased online at http://www.rom.on.ca.

This lecture is supported through the generosity of the Holtby Family.

For more media information, interviews or images, please contact:
Amanda Fruci, ROM Publicist, amandaf@rom.on.ca or 416.586.5558