Event overview
Arts of Catastrophe: Art as Inquiry, Archive, and Commons
The Graduate School and Migrant Futures Institute are delighted to be welcoming Professor Frances Negrón-Muntaner, Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, to deliver the autumn keynote on 'Arts of Catastrophe: Art as Inquiry, Archive, and Commons'.
About the talk:
In this talk, I present the concept of "arts of catastrophe" as a framework for engaging with artistic practice as a mode of inquiry, an archive of possibilities, and a form of political action. I explore and think with the practices and knowledge produced by artists in contexts where various forms of infrastructure—be it physical, bodily, or discursive—break down. In this context. I use the term "catastrophe" in its etymological sense as a turning point, where individuals have the potential to influence the direction of change (Perisic, 2018; Negrón-Muntaner, forthcoming 2026) in order to prevent catastrophe from becoming “disastrous” or exterminating. To illustrate the workings of the arts of catastrophe, I will focus on how Puerto Rican and other Latino artists have leveraged the arts of catastrophe to reshape various infrastructures, reorienting them toward more equitable and just ways of being and living.
Frances Negrón-Muntaner is a filmmaker, writer, scholar, Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities, and the founding curator of the Latino Arts and Activisms collection at Columbia University. Among her books and publications are Puerto Rican Jam (1997), Boricua Pop: Puerto Ricans and the Latinization of American Culture (CHOICE Award, 2004), The Latino Media Gap (2014), and Sovereign Acts: Contesting Colonialism in Native Nations and Latinx America (2017). Negrón-Muntaner has received various recognitions, including the United Nations' Rapid Response Media Mechanism global expert designation in Latin/o American media studies (2008); the Lenfest Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award, (2012), the Latin American Studies Association’s Frank Bonilla Public Intellectual Award (2019), and the Premio Borimix from the Society for Educational Arts in New York (2019). Her films and media works include Brincando el charco (1994), War for Guam (2015), and Valor y Cambio, an art, digital storytelling, and just economy project in Puerto Rico and New York (valorycambio.org).
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 8 Dec 2025 | 5:00pm - 7:00pm |
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