Environmental Historical Memory: Aesthetic Interventions in Contemporary Latin America
This interdisciplinary environmental research delves into how artistic archives contribute to the formation of imaginaries for environmental care and sustainability amid the 20th and 21st century neoliberal crises in Latin America. Some of the artworks this dissertation examines are the River Serpent Book (2017) by Colombian artist Carolina Caycedo, Autobiography of Cotton (2020) by Mexican author Cristina Rivera Garza and a cluster of literary and artistic artwork-archives on banana plantations by José Alejandro Restrepo, Juan Cárdenas and Arabella Saraverry. In particular, this research analyzes how arts contribute to building a transnational, environmental historical memory that includes women, as well as non-human actors like plants and rivers, as marginalized political agents.
Bio:
Carolina Sánchez is a Colombian writer and researcher. She is a PhD candidate in Latin American Literature at Rutgers University and a co-editor of the Latin American Platform for Environmental Humanities. Among her recent publications are “Land and Shred: Riverine Cinema, Environmental Violence and Forced Displacement in Colombia” in Tekoporá and “An Ontology of the In-Between: A Reading of Laura’s Restrepo Delirio,” published in Human Rights in Colombian Literature and Cultural Production (Routledge 2022).