The Working Group on Slavery and Visual Culture is proud to arrange this international traveling colloquium in order to discuss research related to images of slavery and the slave trade, as well as the creation and use of images and objects by enslaved peoples and slave holders. Our aim is to explore the multivalent relationship between slavery and visual cultures, examining themes such as the role of the gaze and surveillance in slave societies and societies with slaves; regional comparisons of visual regimes associated with slavery; visual culture’s connection to racialized regimes of slavery; and the roles played by self-fashioning and the accumulation of visual capital. The aim of this particular event in Cartagena is to convene a group of scholars and visual artists who are making important contributions to the study of the relationships between visuality, slavery and memory in the Caribbean.

The format of the event will combine the discussion of pre-circulated individual research papers (in seminar-like settings), individual lectures, the discussion of selected objects, and study visits to sites associated with the memory of slavery in and around the city of Cartagena, including San Basilio de Palenque. The event will be organized in collaboration with colleagues at the Universidad de Cartagena.

 

 

Colloquium organizer:

Larissa Brewer García

With the support of

Isabela Fraga

The organizing team of the Working Group on Slavery and Visual Culture is comprised of: Agnes Lugo-Ortiz (University of Chicago), Cécile Fromont (Yale), Danielle Roper (University of Chicago), and Larissa Brewer-García (University of Chicago). Our partner for this event at the Universidad de Cartagena is Francisco Florez Bolívar.

The conversation and discussions of the event will mostly be conducted in Spanish, but participants are welcome to share their pre-circulated papers, lectures, or object talks in English if they want to.