“As indigenous we were conquered, as indigenous we will free ourselves.” - Popular Aymara Saying
Where is art produced? Who creates it? For whom is it intended? Who visits the exhibitions? Research on the politics of representation proposed by such authors as Stuart Hall, Edward Said, or Gayatri Spivak have influenced investigations into art and expanded dialogue on the place of enunciation for artists, investigators, and curators. Museums, cultural centers, galleries, biennales, and festivals—aware that as a social practice their activities generate discourse—have reevaluated their roles with respect to the politics of representation.
In Latin America, indigenous artists have invaded the contemporary art scene and transformed it into a place of enunciation for their own interests, for example, Maruch Santiz (Mexico), Amaru Cholango (Ecuador), Elliot Tupac (Peru), Bernardo Oyarzún (Chile), or José Ballivián (Bolivia). Other creators have appropriated, transformed, or investigated arguments regarding indigenous knowledge, for example, Ernesto Neto (Brazil), Diana Rico (Colombia), Anna Bella Geiger (Brazil), Sandra de Berduccy/Aruma (Bolivia), Ticio Escobar (Paraguay), Angélica Alomoto (Ecuador), among others. Also, intensifying debates during the 2000s turned to the existence of multiple cultural identities, which tend to be tense, conflictive, and asymmetrical relationships. The dismantling of binary readings of reality, such as indigenous versus the West or North versus South, have resulted in the development of new categories, for example, hybridity (García Canclini),Ch’ixi(Silvia Rivera), or impurity and contamination (Gustavo Buntinx).
It is within this framework that we invite the community to ask: What strategies do indigenous, original, or rural artists utilize to discover discourses and platforms in contemporary art? How is contemporary art a place of enunciation for indigenous, original, or rural artists? What contributions has indigenous, original, or rural knowledge made to contemporary art? What are the power relations involved in the appropriation of cultural diversities in contemporary art? What are the possibilities for generating intercultural dialogues through art? How do indigenous, original, or rural communities interact with the hegemonic centers of reproduction in contemporary art, for example, international biennales? Under what circumstances are indigenous artists admitted into the universal history of art? What are the tools for the inclusion and exclusion of indigenous art or popular/folk art? How are indigenous, original, or rural peoples utilized, exoticized, or exploited in contemporary art? How do definitions and practices of contemporary art enter into conflict with indigenous, original, or rural notions of art? How are current debates concerning discussions on decolonization, decoloniality, or anticolonialism being considered in the art world?