Panel Discussion: 7:00–8:30 PM*
*Pre-Event: 6:15 PM Exhibition Walk-thru with artist Antonio Serna

Panelists: Macarena Gomez-Baris, J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, Conor Tomás Reed.

Moderated by Patrick Jaojoco.

Since the 1960s, students of color have fought to decolonize campuses across the Americas. One of their goals was to introduce studies related to their own experiences and include their history outside of the dominant Eurocentric lens. We will discuss some of the original demands and achievements, and compare them to the current wave of decolonizing academia.Secondly, one of main concerns in the project Our Time is to highlight the racism in the arts as affecting all people of color across America.

We ask, what can we gain from a comparative ethnographic analysis of this history? What are the limits and pitfalls of such study? How does it affect the visual arts and visual cultural studies in general (framework of research, production, participation, and consumption)?As a third discussion point, we will consider spaces of resistance, noting Esteban Izquierdo Mejia’s intro to Spaces of Cultural Resistance that is similarly echoed in Macarena Gomez-Barris’ intro to The Extractive Zone. Can we consider examples of the importance of spaces of resistance (decolonial or otherwise) that, as Mejia notes, “operate to create imagined geographies of belonging that challenge the effects of cultural oppression at the local and regional level?”

This panel is held in conjunction with “Documents of Resistance: Our Time” Antonio Serna’s exhibition and residency at The Loisaida, Inc. Center, September 14–October 28, 2018. Support for “Documents of Resistance: Our Time” is made possible in part with public funds from Creative Engagement, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and administered by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs‘ Development Fund.

*Pre-Event: Exhibition walk-through with artist Antonio Serna starts at 6:15 pm

Moderated by Patrick Jaojoco

Bios

Patrick JaojocoisaBrooklyn-based arts professional, curator, researcher, and writer focusing on political ecology and historiography, in particular how creative practices and landscape interpretation can aid in public understanding of long-term ecological, economic, and political histories. He has organized numerous exhibitions and public programs throughout New York; recently, he worked withthecuratorial collective Frontview onaproject around American pre-colonial, colonial, and cartographic histories and practices. He currently works at Storefront for Art and Architecture, where Patrick supportstheorganization’s exhibitions and projects as Development and Communications Associate. Patrick wasa2015-2017 Curatorial Fellow at SVA’s MA Curatorial Practice program, and received his BA in English Literature and Environmental Studies from New York University.

Macarena Gomez-Barrisis Professor and Chairperson of Social Science and Cultural Studies at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. She is also Director oftheGlobal South Center (GSC),aresearch center that works attheintersection of social ecologies, art/politics, and decolonial methodologies. Her instructional focus is on Latinx and Latin American Studies, memory andtheafterlives of violence, decolonial theory,theart of social protest, and queer femme epistemes.

J. Kēhaulani Kauanuiis Professor of American Studies and affiliate faculty in Anthropology at Wesleyan University, where she teaches courses related to Indigenous studies, critical race studies, settler colonial studies, and anarchist studies. She isthecurrent Chair of American Studies andthecurrent Director oftheCenter fortheAmericas. Her first book isHawaiian Blood: Colonialism andthePolitics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity(Duke University Press 2008) and her second book isParadoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty: Land, Sex, andtheColonial Politics of State Nationalism(Duke University Press, 2018). She also hasanew edited book,Speaking of Indigenous Politics: Conversations with Activists, Scholars, and Tribal Leaders. Kauanui currently serves asaco-producer for an anarchist politics show called “Anarchy on Air,”amajority POC show co-produced withagroup of Wesleyan students, which builds on her earlier work on another collaborative anarchist program called “Horizontal Power Hour.”

Conor Tomás Reedis an archivist, doctoral student, educator, and organizer attheCity University of New York,acollective member of Lost & Found:TheCUNY Poetics Document Initiative, andaco-founding participant intheFree University of New York City. Conor researches twentieth and twenty first-century literatures of social movements and urban freedom schools, and isa2016-2017 Scholar-in-Residence attheSchomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Conor is currently working on his dissertation:CUNY Will Be Free!: Black, Puerto Rican, and Women’s Compositions, Literatures, and Studies attheCity College of New York and New York City, 1960-1980.