Event overview
A conversation on contemporary lootings and reparations, with Aura Cumes, Florencia Portocarrero and Cristina Lleras.
Please note, this event will be in Spanish, an English subtitled version will be uploaded shortly afterwards to the Visual Cultures department YouTube page.
4.30 Introductions, Maria Iñigo Clavo and Yaiza Hernández Velázquez
4.45 Aura Cumes, Archaeology, museums and ongoing colonial looting
In countries with a colonial history, the looting of artefacts belonging to indigenous people to furnish a museum or a tourist resort is not a thing of the past, but an ongoing reality. Far from implementing restitution policies, foreign and criollo economic powers continue to take control of so-called excavations, turning them into tourist attractions. This paper will focus on the case of El Mirador, a sacred Maya site that the archaeologist Richard Hansen claimed to have "discovered" but is simultaneously being claimed by the Guatemalan criolla elites in a context in which tourism to "The Heart of the Mayan World" is the third largest source of income in a country that continues to feed from the ongoing plundering of indigenous peoples.
5.15 Florencia Portocarrero, On Ser Pallay
Ser Pallay is a textile project that revolves around kunan pallaykuna, contemporary Andean textile iconography, part of a collaboration between fibre artists Maria José Murillo and Verovcha and eight weaving artists belonging to the Centro de Textiles Tradicionales del Cusco: Alipio Melo, Celia Sabina Pfoccohuanca, Cintia Ylla, Cristina Ylla, Hermelinda Espinoza, Luz Clara Cusihuaman, Miriam Quispe and Norma Ojeda. The project, curated by Florencia Portocarrero, was built through a series of meetings at the CTTC and the Vigil Gonzales gallery, aiming to generate a space in which knowledges could be exchanged between artists that despite different educational background share a genuine knowledge of Andean weaving and textiles.
5.45 Cristina Lleras, On the Museum of Memory
The Museum of Memory of Colombia was created by the Law for Victims and Land Restitution in 2011 with the objective of contributing to the symbolic reparation of victims of internal armed conflict in Colombia. Since then, different directors and administrations have tried to answer the question of what a museum's role should be in the context of transitional justice. What does the promise of reparation entail for museum professionals involved in this process? From 2016 and 2018, Lleras had the privilege of working for the Museum of Memory, heading a team of people who put together an exhibition in two major Colombian cities. In this talk, Lleras will share some of her personal lessons on museums, human rights and reparations.
6.15 Roundtable and Q & A session
This event was organised by Maria Iñigo Clavo, from the School of Fine Arts, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya with the collaboration of Yaiza Hernández Velázquez, Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths.
Image credit: Celia Sabina Pfoccohuanca, president of the Asociación Centro de Tejedores Munay Pallay Awaqkuna de Accha Alta
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 16 Nov 2022 |
4:30pm - 7:30pm The event will be in Spanish |
Accessibility
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