[-empyre-] The Latin American body and landscape

Fri Jul 22 04:28:20 AEST 2016

Hi Cristina and Carolyn and all,

One of the terrific achievements of contemporary art practice and critical spatial practice, for that matter, is how it’s formed by feminist strategies, even subliminally.
One of the signal features of feminism in the context of cultural production is its obsession and critique of embodiment— embodiment in all its paradox and complexity. 
In cyber-feminism, if we think of such as a generative engine of feminist values in our times of extreme displacement,  and auto-perpetuation of violences at every register—
embodiment goes beyond questions of ‘such a thing as’ classification of peoples, or a focus on etymologies of ‘universal’ terms such as ‘landscape', or taxonomies of cultural 
identities. Instead, contemporary art practice, for example, here,  Castaño’s, is a ferocious means by which to take, and propagate an ethical position, against and at the same time, from within the
pervasive rot of post-modernity, as Rosi Braidotti calls it—  ‘putrefaction of the industrial space, marking the death of the modernist dream of urban civil society.’ 

Christina 

Christina McPhee
naxsmash at mac.com <mailto:naxsmash at mac.com>

http://christinamcphee.net <http://christinamcphee.net/>

> On Jul 21, 2016, at 8:53 AM, cristina miranda <cristinamiranda.de at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Dear Everyone, 
> In relation to the message by Carolyn Castaño, it raised many questions to me:
> If we wish to oppose the official story and representation let's start by asking if there is such a thing as a Latin American women, given the fact that in Latin America there are all kinds of peoples, from Indigenous, to Africans, to North and South European, Arabic and Japanese emigrants. Do you think all these origins are not present and do not determine bodies? How do you understand a Latin American body emerging out of these origins that are not 'latina'? For me it is impossible to see Women in Latin America as Latin American Women understood as 'latina'.  what do we mean by body and by 'landscape'; why do you connect body and landscape in the case of 'latin american women'. Is that only valid for Latin American Women (in the way you define), why not to relate body and landscape to other women in the world? Is this a valid approach? I consider that relating women's body and landscape is not a feminist approach. In fact the origin of 'landscape' is related to 'control' and domination of nature. So, from this approach inscribing the woman body in relation to the 'landscape' can be  similar to relating it to a controlled and objectifie nature. 
> How can we relate body and landscape in a feminist way?
> Thank you for raising these questions in my mind,
> Best,
> Cristina
> 
> On 19 July 2016 at 16:38, carolyn castano <carolyncastano at gmail.com <mailto:carolyncastano at gmail.com>> wrote:
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Hello Everyone! 
> It's been wonderful to follow along and read everyone's posts. I'm interested in how Feminist Data Visualization can offer an opposing picture of the "official  story" or resist  what Catherine D'Ignazio calls the "final representation", specifically, when it comes to women and minority bodies and narratives. I'd like to share some of the work that I have been doing that attempts to provide alternate histories of Latin American women, the body and landscape.  
> 
> A little bit about my work: 
> As a visual artist, my practice has focused on painting, drawing, and video. My most recent bodies of work are all encounters with themes and images originating in our hemisphere’s narco-‐trafficking milieu and armed conflicts, with a particular emphasis on how gender and ecological concerns play out therein. These drawings and paintings mix materiality with content in pieces that consider how the Latin American body and the Latin American landscape remain inextricably linked, even as their surrounding media and political contexts are increasingly digitized and globalized. I’m drawn to these questions not just as a Colombian-‐American and a woman, but as a painter who believes painting, drawing and mark making continue to offer rich, materials-‐based avenues for understanding the world around us. 
>  I have several works that I'll share with you through my website (apologies, it is being rebuilt, so the presentation is a bit wonky) and through my Vimeo page.  The first piece is titled The Female Report/ El Reporte Femenil.  
>  The Female Report/ El Reporte Femenil explores the role of Latin American women in history and the media. In The Female Report/El Reporte Femenil, a single channel video which addresses perceptions of Latin American women in news and ‘infotainment’ culture through a simulated newscast exploring feminism and popular notions of Latina womanhood. Modeled after popular, female-anchored Spanish-language television news programs on Telemundo and Univision, El Reporte Femenil features a fictional newscaster, Silviana Godoy, “reporting” on the past and current status of women in Latin America. Godoy alternates between English and Spanish over the course of an extended, free-wheeling monologue, alighting on the accomplishments and downfalls of Latin American women. The Female Report/ El Reporte Femenil travels between English and Spanish and employs a tongue in cheek or comedic delivery that "reports" on the news or alternate history. The reporter Silvia Godoy interprets her own newscast switching from English to Spanish in an act that Brasilian writer Oswald De Andrade calls Antropofagia,  she simultaneously consumes or eats her own words.  
> The Female Report/ El Reporte Femenil challenges or relocates the official feminist history ( one that is usually centered on the history makers from Europe and the US) by offering the names of key women in Latin American revolutions, art, and literature. 
> The Female Report/El Reporte Femenil https://vimeo.com/41060029 <https://vimeo.com/41060029> 
>  
> In Physiognomy of Tropical Vegetation in South America: After Humboldt & Berg immerses itself in a visual tradition at the root of many of these conversations: the maps, painted travelogues and scientific illustrations that were critical tools of colonialism, botany and pharmacology. This work is inspired by two 19th Century botanical explorers, Alexander Von Humboldt, who created a study of native birds, flowers and plants in the Americas, and Albert Berg, who painted the Magdalena River Valley in Colombia. My own investigations play off Humboldt and Berg’s rich legacy of botanical and geographical illustration, evoking both abstract and figurative painting as well as the current political and ecological state of the Magdalena River, site of an ongoing armed conflict between the Colombian government, Marxist guerrillas, right-‐wing paramilitaries and narco-‐traffickers.  
>  
> Physiognomy of Tropical Vegetation in South America: After Humboldt & Berg & Garden Heads- http://carolyncastano.com/content/professional-work-0 <http://carolyncastano.com/content/professional-work-0> 
> 
> View the original drawings by Alexander Von Humboldt & Albert Berg in the Illinois Digital Archive - http://www.idaillinois.org/cdm/ref/collection/ncbglib01/id/4235 <http://www.idaillinois.org/cdm/ref/collection/ncbglib01/id/4235> 
> 
> My final work that I'll share with you is a video titled Mujeres Que Crean/ Women Who Create which features displaced survivors of Colombia’s armed conflict re-enacting poses and gestures found in historical artworks. Set against drawn tropical landscapes inspired by 18th-century botanical illustrations of the Magdalena river valley, the video explores the role of women as mothers, sisters, and children of the armed-‐ conflict, their human stories of loss and resilience underscored by the decline of the fragile ecologies surrounding the rural towns and villages they fled. The work in the exhibition is the culmination of a project that began three years ago during a residency at Casa Tres Patios in Medellin, Colombia, where I led a series of workshops with women from the NGO Corporacion Por La Vida, Mujeres Que Crean. 
> 
> Mujeres Que Crean/Women Who Create-https://vimeo.com/131447856 <https://vimeo.com/131447856> 
>  
> 
> -- 
> carolyn castaño
> www.carolyncastano.com <http://www.carolyncastano.com/>
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