As in an origami, images representing missing people in Argentina and actions of State terrorism during the 1970s are bent and folded multiple times, until they create another image. Such folds relate to the findings, manipulation, circulation, and uses of pictures proposed as representation of the extreme situation of the disappearance. This article covers four frames of analysis about the modifications that images undergo according to the discourse contexts in which they are used: the public use of the missing person's image as denunciation, the photography within the domestic sphere to differentiate his/her death from other deaths, the use of the missing relative's portrait over the body of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, and finally the circulation of photographic portraits in memory institutions such as museums and archives.
memory; extreme situations; photography; missing persons; Argentina.