Memory, Diaspora, and Resistance
Cuban Art of the Diaspora: A Visual Journey
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Andrea Herrera
This paper will highlight the creative expressions of a group of Cuban diasporic artists, who participate in an itinerant, multi-generational and multi-media exhibition titled CAFÉ. Reflecting their affinity with their predeccesors, the CAFÉ artists have collectively forged a visual vocabulary that establishes their national or cultural affiliation despite the exigencies of displacement; yet their work also reveals a mode of cultural exchange that has characterized Cuban art and cultural production for centuries. Although their art reflects a collective cultural imaginary that has been preserved and cultivated in diaspora, it simultaneously reveals the manner in which they have rooted and re-rooted in new cultural contexts. At the same time that it speaks to the notion of cultural hybridity and transculturation, the CAFÉ exhibits represent a process of exchange, adaptation, transformation and synthesis that can be located in the larger historical context of colonialism, movement, and displacement; in this sense it represents a very particular Caribbean aesthetic. This paper will foreground a cultural studies approach to the study of diasporic identity formation in a transnational context. When considered from this theoretical perspective, café cubano—the controlling metaphor of the exhibition—encapsulates the diasporic or exilic condition, for it represents fundamental, iconographic cultural practices which enable diasporic Cubans to preserve their sense of Cubanness; yet it is also a powerful metaphor for the manner in which diasporic Cubans are transformed by, and have transformed, their experience in new contexts.
Fotografía Plástica and Other Non-reversible Changes
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session O. Gustavo Plascencia
Plasticity, in physics, is described as the deformation of a material undergoing non-reversible changes of shape in response to applied force. This concept resonates deeply within my artwork, both conceptually and physically. Individuals constantly (re)create and (re)define their identity by the way of the passing of time and new experiences and relationships. In similar ways my prints go through a change with different degrees of molding, cutting, burning, stretching, sewing, or the application of paint or ink before they become finished pieces. The denotation and connotation of my photo-constructions are always linked to larger narratives and journeys intersecting historical, religious, secular, and/or personal histories where the individual goes through non-reversible changes in response of applied force. In addition to the landscape or place, the body is where personal histories happen – bearing witness to the most transforming of histories for the individual. In this context the body is used as a landscape that is meant to be inhabited and a place where memories/ histories are created – the body is both a vehicle and a destination. Identity is a complex concept, it’s affected by many factors and its ever-changing; when one starts to consider ethnic background, social class, religion, gender, family, values, ethics, and so on, everything gets more complicated. Sometimes one cannot separate one’s identity from the rest, all of them coexist and interact with each other. Such dilemmas and situations are presented in my artwork and explored through mystic, allegoric, and historical references and imagery.
The Fall of the Sky and Afro-Atlantic Histories: Contemporary Art, Decolonialism and Resistance
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Bruna Arruda Neiva Marques
The study discusses the impact of recent exhibitions of contemporary art exhibited in Brazilian museums, produced by Latin American artists imbued with emergencies that, faced by indigenous communities and afro-descendants, are relevant to the whole society. From two exhibitions, "The Fall of the Sky" and "Afro-Atlantic Stories," made throughout the last 2 years in Brazil, with the participation of artists from countries such as Guatemala, Uruguay, Colombia, Jamaica, Brazil, it intends to think about art as a place of birth for hope and for effective educational and social actions. The researcher presents results from interviews with curators (Moacir dos Anjos, Lilia Moritz, among others) and participating artists (Cildo Meireles, Claudia Andujar, Regina Galindo, Dalton Paula, among others). It will present reflections on the impact of representation and symbolic power and of the works presented to provoke and summon the public to the dialogue between art and social issues, strengthen and broaden discussions about the rights of indigenous and people of African descent. Data will be presented on public visitation, educational actions and their tangible impacts. The objective is to contribute to visibility of issues that are still little confronted in spaces of artistic presentation in Latin America, as if the had little worth or not even existed, with special focus on the performative gesture present in the works of art presented. The paper presents ways of creating - through art - fissures, crossings, dialogues and resistance proposals from connections that forge and nurture the cultural heritage of the peoples mentioned here.
