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Shifting Grounds: Landscape and Cultural Practice in Latin America

The concept of landscape is linked to the emotional attachment that individuals form with a particular place. This shared experience is a unifying bond among people or social groups within a region that contributes to our sense of place and identity, serving as a record for our unfolding connection with the land. In Latin America, landscape is also a field for conflict for representation, where constant struggles for re-signification and manifestations seeking political revindications converge. This session explores artistic and cultural practices from the twentieth century in Latin America that have formed in solidarities or resistances to the transformation of landscapes and their possible re-definitions. It aims to draw upon how such interventions unfix spatiotemporal boundaries imposed upon land and the self-understanding of those who come to occupy it.

What alternative vistas for the future arise from practices of re-naming, re-creating and re-configuring cultural objects, bodies and institutions, thereby changing the historical landscape? We invite scholars, artists, and community organisers to think beyond the notion of landscape as a pictorial genre, commenting on the field they are engaging with as a landscape itself. In the broader scope of this interdisciplinary engagement, submissions can focus on participatory artistic projects invested in spatial justice. Another line of inquiry can take on contemporary feminist reclamations of the legacy of colonial, natural and national landscapes figured through the metaphor of the female body and vice versa.

Session Convenors:

Defne Oruc, University College London

Camilo Escobar Pazos, King’s College London

Speakers:

Lorna Dillon, University of Cambridge

Embodied Protest: Feminist Embroidery as Street Art in Latin America 

In countries such as Chile, Ecuador, Colombia and Mexico, feminists are intervening in the public space bringing therapy and politics together using the quotidian medium of needlework. In this paper I explore the spatial interventions of embroidery projects reflecting on the way they are used to occupy public spaces, reconfiguring urban landscapes into participatory and performative spaces. 

I reflect on the new signifying processes that the needlework groups use in street art, from embroidered posters and fabric banners, to pop-up workshops and memorials. I pay particular attention to the transmediality of their activism, which harnesses the urban space, and moves quickly to digital dissemination through social media. Embodiment and the haptic are central to the process, and this clashes with the architectural monumentality of their surroundings.  I suggest that Latin American textile artists and sewing collectives of the twenty-first century use textile art as a language and use exhibitions and the internet to form new ways of collaborating. In this way they establish supranational art movements and online constellations of solidarity that reconfigure our understanding of the urban space and those who occupy it. I am interested in the ways they use embroidery as a form of activism, which is intended to influence public opinion and public decisions. 

I discuss the aggregation of spaces engaged by sewing collectives as they discuss a multiplicity of issues through their art and exhibit twenty-first century arpilleras in a variety of ways. From the personal, domestic buildings, parks and plazas, where they sew together, to public spaces occupying streets and in front of historical buildings, where their embroideries form part of the signifying processes of protest marches. The groups also exhibit in galleries and on social media platforms, allowing the art works to articulate meanings for different audiences.  

María Fernanda Mancera, Tufts University

Moving with and through worlds—weaving perspectives in Miguel Cordero’s Hacer un Pachakchaki

Fifty bodies, bound together by a yellow wool sweater, make their way through a barren landscape. Jointly, they make a Pachakchaki, Quechua for centipede or ciempiés in Spanish. From an aerial perspective, the group looks like a tiny, colourful insect, twisting and turning over an unstable ground with no apparent destination. Yet, the participants traverse a familiar territory: the Sacred Valley in Peru. Entitled Hacer un Pachakchaki o saco para ciempiés (2018),this performance and video were envisioned by Peruvian artist Miguel Cordero and the Asociación Artesanal Llapan Pallay Yachac of Patabamba.

This paper discusses the intertwining of doing and making (i.e., sourcing the wool, dyeing, and knitting the sweater, composing the melody for the video, performing) as the two actions that render the Pachakchaki. In so doing, it examines how the performance underlines a way of being in which the Patabambeños are one with the territory—their histories of resistance, solidarity, extraction, and continuity are never without each other.

Estefanía Vallejo Santiago, Florida State University

Voices in Color: Damaris Cruz, Street Art, and the Reclamation of Afro-Puerto Rican Identity 

Street art, particularly since the 2010s, has served as a powerful tool for evoking memories of colonization in Puerto Rico, blending the past and present. Beyond a visual experience, street art serves as mnemonic device that secures historical narratives in contemporary urban landscapes. Damaris Cruz, known as “Damalola,” distinguishes herself in this art form. Scholarly dialogues have eloquently narrated many collective artistic prowess, yet a comprehensive examination of Damaris Cruz—particularly in the sphere of socio-politics encompassing Puerto Rico and its association to Blackness—remains largely uncharted. In this essay, I make meticulous attention Cruz’s mural, Recolectando la Semilla (2017) and her nuanced portrayal of the laboring Black female figure as symbol of liberation. Centered in critical and decolonial theory, this essay unearths her mural as integral to the discourse on public art, race, and place in the Caribbean and the American hemisphere. Cruz’s work emphasizes the connection of Afro-Puerto Ricans to their homeland, countering historical and spatial erasure. Anchored at the intersection of race and place, this composition illuminates the enduring legacies of colonialism that shape Puerto Rico’s shared spaces and identities. By analyzing Cruz’s contribution, this essay highlights the significant role of Black women in shaping Puerto Rican national identity, underscoring the need for a deeper exploration and recognition of their enduring legacy in the nation’s cultural tapestry. Consequently, this composition not only enriches existing discourses on Cruz but also amplifies our understanding of politically resonant artistry characteristic of global street art. 

Tamara Campos, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México

Landscape, territory and resistance: the gaze of Cempoaltecatl, the Otomi giant

Can a mountain have territory? The Map of Cempoala is an indigenous image of the late sixteenth century, whose protagonist, as proposed, is the hill Cempoaltecatl, a being of the landscape that proves it. But the Cempoaltecatl is not only a powerful being of the landscape but also an Otomi giant, who had to resist Spanish colonialism in his territories through his body. To achieve this, he established a relationship between his body and his gaze with which he was able to trace the landscape as his territory. To include all these relationships, the indigenous painters elaborated a complex and dynamic image, using an irregular stroke whose mechanism refers to the tradition of the Mesoamerican codices, which had not been previously considered in the analysis. The Map of Cempoala belongs to a group of images that recorded the reconfiguration of the territory from Mesoamerica to New Spain. The elaboration of images in the form of maps, codices or canvases was one of the most effective forms of resistance to renegotiate the rights of indigenous peoples over their territories. However, an even greater resistance was given in the Map of Cempoala, which not only advocated for indigenous rights, but also made it clear that a mountain is the owner of this territory.

Daniel Moreno, Freie Universität Berlin

Photography as a Conduit between History and Nature: Palonegro’s Hill of the Dead through the Lens of Amalia Ramírez de Ordoñez (1901)

This presentation explores an enigmatic photograph by Amalia Ramírez de Ordoñez that captures the aftermath of the Battle of Palonegro in “La Guerra de los mil días” (Thousand Days’ War) in Colombia (1901). This war, a pivotal chapter in Colombian history, is sparsely documented through photography. Despite the ubiquity of the medium in 19th-century

Colombia, its utilization in journalism remained restrained. Ramírez de Ordoñez’s lens immortalized the Palonegro battlefield, yielding an image of a geological-like formation cradling the casualties of war. Captured in January 1901, the photograph serves as a poignant visual narrative of the May 1900 conflict. This photograph encapsulates a unique perspective on the reception of violent historical events. Of particular interest to this presentation is Ramírez de Ordoñez’s naming of the photograph as “La loma de los muertos” (The Hill of the Dead). The title, referencing a geographical formation, proves intriguing as it implies a transcendence from historical to natural elements, echoing the transformative dynamics of Walter Benjamin’s theories on the intersection of history and art. This presentation engages with Benjamin’s concepts, exploring the photograph as a dialectical image, revealing a shift in the perception of violence. The war, as a historical event, materializes in this image as a geological formation seamlessly integrated into the depiction of nature as a landscape in which history and nature appear to entangle. This intersection of history, nature, and art, viewed through the lens of Benjamin’s theories, offers nuanced insights into the complex interplay of violence, memory, and environment in Colombian history.

Melisa Miranda Correa, University of Edinburgh

Exploring Chullpa Pacha in the Rock Art Landscape: Luisa Terán’s Ayni Storywork

In the Andean landscape of Caspana, artist and storyteller Luisa Terán explores rock art landscapes challenging archaeological epistemologies which anchor them in prehistoric times. This presentation thoughtfully examines the relationship between landscape and time in Luisa’s unique artistic practice. Chullpa Pacha, a concept rooted in the Aymara language, signifies a time-space, sites once inhabited by past generations. In this context, chullpas are graves located next to rock art canvases. Luisa effectively utilises her storytelling method, willakuy, enriched by narratives passed down by community elders to preserve the stories inspired by the rock art figures and reinterpret them through a feminist perspective. In a composite and cyclical process, Luisa traces rock art figures next to the chullpas, collects associated stories, and names the discovered sites, creating a cohesive narrative that educates younger generations about traditional practices. She then returns her focus to the landscape to reproduce the figures that inspire these stories and practice ayni, reciprocating care towards the sites and their past people.

Luisa’s practice embodies deep respect and recognition for the ancestors, integrating figure reproduction with a connection to the land and ancestral rituals. Consequently, Luisa’s practice reclaims the past or pachakuti and forges connections to the present and future, bridging the gap between tradition and modernity. By challenging traditional Andean narratives with a feminist perspective, her innovative approach redefines rock art as a dynamic and meaningful practice that has the potential to shape and inspire our world in crisis.

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