ISLAA, the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, The Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY), and Columbia University are pleased to announce the Sixth Annual Symposium of Latin American Art. “Movement & Presence: The Visual Culture of the Americas” will be held on March 30, 31, and April 1, 2022. The Symposium will include keynote presentations by Denise Ferreira da Silva and Diana Taylor.
“Latin America”—the idealized landscape, geospatial entity, and sociocultural construct—has been shaped and mythologized by, through, and against movement. The invention of America and, later, of Latin America, legitimized and enabled the dispossession of land and Indigenous lifeways—of Abya Yala and Turtle Island, for example—into the Euro-Christian imaginary and facilitated the colonial and imperial expansion of the West across the globe. These inventions enabled the mass movement of people, goods, images, and ideas through the processes of African and Indigenous enslavement, resource extraction, global capitalism, and the implementation of borders. Similarly, “latinidad,” a unifying identity-construct for Latin America’s diaspora in the US—with its erasures of Black, Indigenous, and Asian lived experiences—is also predicated on this mobility: it is an identity which is forged through migration and the crossing of borders. However, Indigenous worldviews, migration, and networks of cross-cultural exchange are also forms of movement which predate and intersect with this very idea, offering modes of resistance to ongoing processes of coloniality. Movement is an intentional, embodied presence that invokes cross-temporal and cross-spatial histories, as well as futurities. Closely related to movement are the experiences of community, networks, continuity, and presence. As Diana Taylor writes, being present, or ¡Presente!, constitutes a decisive act of resistance and solidarity.
The Symposium will be held entirely online. Following submission of your RSVP, the Zoom link will be provided via email in advance of each conference day.
Please note that presentations will be given in English, Portuguese, or Spanish. The language of each presentation is noted in the registration page on the Institute of Fine Arts' website, listed below. Autogenerated captioning will be available.
Click this link to register for the event.
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Denise Ferreira da Silva, Professor and Director of the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, University of British Columbia
Wednesday, March 30, 6:00 PM
Diana Taylor, University Professor and Professor of Performance Studies and Spanish, New York University
Friday, April 1, 12:00 PM
SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30
3:30 PM Opening Remarks
Edward J. Sullivan, Deputy Director and Helen Gould Shepard Professor in the History of Art, the Institute of Fine Arts and College of Arts and Sciences, New York University
3:45 – 5:15 PM Panel 1: Contando histórias, narrando lembranças
6:00 – 7:15 PM Keynote
Introduction: Anna Indych-López, Professor, Art History, The Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY) and The City College of New York (CCNY) (CUNY); Kirk Varnedoe Visiting Professor of Modern Art, the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
Keynote: After It’s All Said … : Reading Art as Confrontation
Denise Ferreira da Silva, Professor and Director of the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, University of British Columbia
THURSDAY, MARCH 31
11:00 AM Welcome
Jennifer Ball, Executive Officer, PhD Program in Art History and Professor, Art History, The Graduate Center and Brooklyn College, City University of New York (CUNY)
11:15 AM – 12:45 PM Panel 2: Emplazar el lugar
FRIDAY, APRIL 1
10:00 AM Welcome
Katherine Manthorne, Professor, Art of the Americas, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York (CUNY)
10:15 – 11:45 AM Panel 3: (Re)Enactments: Performance and Public Space
12:00 – 1:15 PM Keynote
Introduction: Christine Poggi, Judy and Michael Steinhardt Director and Professor of Fine Arts, The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
Keynote: The Politics of Presence
Diana Taylor, University Professor and Professor of Performance Studies and Spanish, New York University
2:30 – 4:00 PM Panel 4: Unfixed Identities
The faculty advisors for the Annual Symposium of Latin American Art are Edward J. Sullivan, Deputy Director and Helen Gould Shepard Professor in the History of Art, the Institute of Fine Arts and College of Arts and Sciences, New York University; Anna Indych-López, Professor, Art History, The Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY) and The City College of New York (CCNY) (CUNY), Kirk Varnedoe Visiting Professor of Modern Art, the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University; Katherine Manthorne, Professor, Art History, The Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY); Lisa Trever, Lisa and Bernard Selz Associate Professor in Pre-Columbian Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University; Jerónimo Duarte-Riascos, Assistant Professor, Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures, Columbia University. The Symposium is organized by PhD students Mónica Ramírez Bernal, Chloë Courtney, Kerry Doran, Cathryn Jijón, Shannah Rose, and MA candidate Sophia Gebara.
Poster design by Agustín Ceretti.
