Faculty Work-in-Progress: Belkis Ayon's Media Archaeology

Throughout the 1990s, the Cuban artist Belkis Ayón produced a vast corpus of works on paper using the printing method of collography, in which the matrix for printing an image is composed of diverse, commonplace materials, literally a collage of found objects drawn together to form a surface for printed impressions. Drawing both on her own Afro-Cuban heritage, but also on techniques of ethnographic research, Ayón used the collographic print to explore Cuba's Afro-Catholic religious traditions, and specifically those that were restricted to men. This paper considers the nexus that Ayón's practice configures between the printed image, Afro-Cuban heritage, and anthropology's own disciplinary history by focusing closely on the themes of surface and texture that appear constantly within the collographic process. Relating these questions to works of experimental Cuban cinema of earlier decades, the paper identifies a latent feminist paradigm within Ayón's work that recasts the relationship between knowledge, secret, and surface.

An informal lunch with be served. Registration is requested.

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