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- Convenors:
-
Alex Ungprateeb Flynn
(University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA))
Maria Íñigo Clavo (Uoc)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- Peter Froggatt Centre (PFC), 03/017
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 26 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel seeks to detail how artistic and curatorial practice has informed the decolonial turn that so characterises contemporary scholarly thought and theorise how such practice may point to the decolonialities of tomorrow.
Long Abstract:
'Arts of the decolonial' seeks to detail how artistic and curatorial practice has informed the decolonial turn that so characterises contemporary scholarly thought and theorise how such practice may point to the decolonialities of tomorrow. While anthropological and art historical study has generally focused on how art is informed by, or otherwise illustrates, scholarly perspectives on decoloniality, this panel questions how artistic and/or curatorial practices might theorise or articulate diverse decolonialities to dynamically transform the canon. If we understand art as generative, how does the work of art practitioners of indigenous, diasporic and peripheral populations challenge Eurocentric paradigms of critical thought? How might, for example, such artistic practice disrupt notions of linear time? How might we conceptualise the reflexive curatorial practice of institutions that work from within a colonial matrix? What might be the sorts of languages that artists provide for thinking about the relation between objects and spectators, the commons and knowledge, theory and practice? How might such languages prefigure the decolonialities of tomorrow, and what might the theoretical basis upon which such contributions are enunciated? If indeed artistic and curatorial practice has played an important role in the facilitation of the decolonial zeitgeist, how might such practitioners be reshaping the very terrain upon which this edifice has been built in the present moment?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 26 July, 2022, -Pamela Cevallos (Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador)
Paper short abstract:
This paper proposes an approach to the discussion on returns and repatriations of objects from the pre-Hispanic past that value appropriations, reinterpretations and local aesthetics as a form of knowledge and connection with the past.
Paper long abstract:
This paper proposes an approach to the discussion on returns and repatriations of objects from the pre-Hispanic past through strategies and activations from contemporary art that are based on the notion of replication. The debate on belonging and the returning of the objects to the so-called "source communities" has question the role of Western devices of authorized knowledge to promote the right of access to these materials and their information. However, national and patrimonial logics have been imposed as the only form of claim, perpetuating the asymmetries and internal colonialism of the state and its control institutions. From my ethnographic experience in the community of La Pila (Manabí-Ecuador), where economic practices of commercialization of archaeological objects and production of crafts based on the pre-Hispanic past have been developed, I research the potential of craft practices based on replication and reproduction as memories and forms of knowledge from doing. In collaboration with artisans who have cultivated a family craft of clay replicas, I create artistic processes that value appropriations, reinterpretations and local aesthetics that evidence other epistemologies and possibilities of connection and coexistence with the past that distance themselves from the canon of originality and authenticity.
Daniel Dinato (Université du Québec à Montréal)
Paper short abstract:
This paper will explore how contemporary indigenous art can transform the mainstream Brazilian art scene, especially curatorial practice. I will seek to develop the idea of the curator as a txai (the Huni Kuin word meaning "brother-in-law") and the txai as a curator.
Paper long abstract:
The term txai was popularized in Brazil with a 1990 album of the same name by the musician Milton Nascimento, although used by indigenous peoples for many decades. Txai is what members of the Huni Kuin’s Artists Movement (MAHKU), a group with whom I have been working since 2016, call foreigners who are relatively close. The most accurate translation for txai is “brother-in-law”. In contrast, the Huni Kuin also use the term nawa to designate non-indigenous people, a word that translates to “Whites” or “enemies”. Txai and nawa designate in different ways those non-indigenous peoples who crossed over the back of the mythical alligator Kapetawã, separating them from the indigenous peoples. From the categories of txai and nawa, that place me in the relationship with MAHKU members, and from this group’s artistic practice, I will seek to develop the idea of curator-txai: a long-term curatorial practice, sustained by the difference, that has in the alliance its main axis.
Giuliana Borea (Newcastle University)
Paper short abstract:
This talk explores and theorises the role of dreams in the practice of Amazonian indigenous artists in terms of place of creativity, connection, and accountability, calling to widening what are seen as platforms of art practices and agents of influence and collaboration.
Paper long abstract:
Drawing on anthropology, art history and Amazonian knowledges and art, this talk explores and theorise the role of dreams in the practice of some Amazonian indigenous artists in terms of place of creativity, connection and accountability with the ancestors and other beings. What do Amazonian people mean by ‘dreams’? What is the relationship between creativity and knowledge, and what happens in dreams? Can we understand dreams in terms of place-making – other platforms of art practice- and for networks with others? Based on long collaboration with indigenous artists and intellectuals, this paper will shed light in these questions rethinking the textures and creative power of dreams for Amazonian indigenous art production.
This paper will also establish comparison with other art practices in which dreams have been, or are, central such as surrealism or the Australian Pintipu paintings and contribute to rethink and decolonise the art historical canon. This presentation is part of the second phase of the Amazonart project – www.amazonart-project.com - with the Newcastle University’s Faculty Research Fund for the ‘Dreams and Night in the Amazon: An exploration of indigenous creativity and encounters’ project.
Alvaro Malaina (University Complutense of Madrid)
Paper short abstract:
We propose an application of the "ontological turn" (Descola 2013, Latour 2007, Viveiros de Castro 2014) in the cinematographic art of countries of the Global South, specifically to the film work of Apichatpong Weerasethakul that shows the animist ontology of the Thai region of Isan.
Paper long abstract:
The decolonial theory (Dussel 2015, Mignolo 2011) focuses on questioning the universality of knowledge proper to science and social thought built on a particular representation of the world (the Euro-Western) that would have been imposed on other knowledges of other peoples since the colonial era, thus opening up to the "epistemologies of the South" (De Sousa 2014). The so-called "ontological turn" in anthropology, developed by authors such as Descola (2013), Latour (2007), Viveiros de Castro (2014), implies a reflexive radicalization of the decolonial theory, by stating that what differs and is not recognized are other worlds in which other peoples live and not their different representations of a supposed common world, that is, the possibility of the existence of other worlds characterized by relations between human and non-human beings different from modern naturalist ontology, based on a separation between culture and nature. While the ontological turn remains an open debate in anthropology, art can serve here to reflect the "ontological turn" from aesthetics and emotional and sensory experience, showing other worlds annulled by western-modern colonialism of power and knowledge. Apichatpong Weerasethakul's cinema shows us, for example, the animist ontology of Isan, Thailand, and its world made of relationships between humans and non-humans (spirits, gods, animals, natural forces) that manifest a continuity of souls and interiorities in a discontinuity of bodies and exteriorities (Descola 2013). We will give examples of his films Tropical Malady (2004), Uncle Boonmee who can recall his past lives (2010) and Cemetery of Splendour (2015).