On the Edge of Visibility—An International Symposium

AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions and Women Photographers International Archive (WOPHA) in partnership with the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) welcome submissions for “On the Edge of Visibility—An International Symposium” focused on Black and Indigenous women* and non-binary artists, with special focus on photographic practices** within three geographical zones: Latin America, the Caribbean, and the US.

Offering a transcontinental approach through postcolonial, feminist, and queer perspectives, this symposium considers the complexities of defining what it means to be a Black or Indigenous woman artist within different cultural settings.

Exploring the notions of visibility and invisibility as they relate to visual practices and dominant power structures, this symposium aims to examine proposed strategies of resistance to reclaim visual agency. It will therefore seek to challenge existing academic boundaries—notably within art history—through a multiplicity of voices, questioning contemporary discourses and their genealogies, and considering the future of the discipline.

This gathering will be structured around three themes: The first section, Fractals of Invisibility, will question the historical and structural reasons for the exclusion of Black and Indigenous women and non-binary artists from art historical narratives. The second section, Politics of Visibility, will examine effective strategies in gaining institutional recognition and achieving socio-political goals while questioning the creation/replication of stereotyped representations within dominant discourse. The third section, Poetics of Opacity, will focus on the notion of opacity according to Edouard Glissant, understood as an impenetrable alterity that cannot be possessed, a concept that has the potential to offer an alternative to Western representations of Black and Indigenous women and non-binary artists.

*Woman is understood as a person, who regardless of their gender assigned at birth, identifies as a woman. **Photographic practices include but are not limited to creating images with or without cameras, automated and computational processes, augmented photography, and collecting, archiving, or circulating images.

Please find the full call in English, French and Spanish on the AWARE website.

This symposium is organized within the context of “The Origin of Others: Rewriting Art History in the Americas” program led by AWARE.

About AWARE
AWARE is a non-profit organization founded in 2014 that highlights women artists of the 19th and 20th century by producing and sharing free bilingual (French/English) content about their work. This online resource presently contains more than 1,000 biographical texts and represents a diversity of voices with texts written by around 450 researchers, curators, and art critics from around the world. AWARE also organizes symposia, round tables, and seminars in collaboration with institutions, universities, museums, and other independent structures internationally.

About WOPHA
WOPHA is a non-profit organization founded by art historian and curator Aldeide Delgado to research, promote, support, and educate on the role of those who identify as women and non-binary in photography. Having begun as a dynamic database showcasing the stories of women-identified Cuban photographers, WOPHA has expanded its geographic scope to include photographers from around the globe. The organization is currently documenting the diverse artistic production of Latin American and Latinx communities, including photographers from Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and artists of Latin American descent living and working in the United States.

About the PAMM
PAMM promotes artistic expression and the exchange of ideas, advancing public knowledge and appreciation of art, architecture, and design, reflecting the diverse community of its pivotal geographic location at the crossroads of the Americas. The 39-year-old South Florida institution, formerly known as Miami Art Museum (MAM), opened a new building, designed by renowned architects Herzog & de Meuron, in 2013 in Downtown Miami’s Maurice A. Ferré Park. The facility is a state-of-the-art model for sustainable museum design and progressive programming, featuring 200,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor program space.