LÓPEZ, Miguel A. (ed.)
And if I devoted my life to one of its feathers? – Aesthetic Responses to Extraction, Accumulation, and Dispossession
"And if I devoted my life to one of its feathers?" wrote the Chilean poet, artist, and feminist activist Cecilia Vicuña in the early 1970s. Vicuña countered anthropocentric and hetero-patriarchal urges with healing and appreciation, reviving the aesthetic and spiritual bonds between human and more-than-human entities and worlds. Revolving around this vision of interconnectivity, this book, which accompanies a joint exhibition of the same name of Kunsthalle Wien and Wiener Festwochen, seeks to create a collective dialogue around unequal distribution of power, sovereignty, and social and ecological justice.
The exhibited works and written contributions reflect on the rationale of exploitation, the fast-paced mining of raw materials, and environmental destruction as a colonial legacy. They deconstruct Western anthropocentric models and enduring colonial and racist discourses, trace the stories of indigenous struggles for collective survival, and celebrate encounters defined by solidarity in their resistance to capitalist extraction, misogyny, imperialist violence, and dispossession. [publisher's note]
Published following the eponymous exhibition at Kunsthalle Wien and Wiener Festwochen in 2021.
With Babi Badalov, Denilson Baniwa, Patricia Belli, Amoako Boafo, Anna Boghiguian, Victoria Cabezas, Quishile Charan, Manuel Chavajay, Chto Delat, Rosa Elena Curruchich, Annalee Davis, Vlasta Delimar, Jim Denomie, María Galindo & Danitza Luna, Nilbar Güreş, Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe, Hiwa K, Karrabing Film Collective, Germain Machuca, Daniela Ortiz, Prabhakar Pachpute, Amanda Piña, Roldán Pinedo / Shöyan Sheca, Sandra Salazar, Victoria Santa Cruz, Olinda Silvano / Reshinjabe, SPIT! (Sodomites, Perverts, Inverts Together! / Carlos Maria Romero, Carlos Motta & John Arthur Peetz), Sophie Utikal, Cecilia Vicuña, Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro, Anna Witt, Bartolina Xixa, Santiago Yahuarcani, Zapantera Negra.
Published by Sternberg Press, 2024
Exhibition Catalogues / Postcolonial Studies
