Movement & Presence: The Visual Cultures of the Americas

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.

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