Thinking Visually: Representation, Gesture, Reparation with Inês Beleza-Barreiros 

In this Research and Academic Program lecture, Inês Beleza-Barreiros (Nova University of Lisbon, Portugal / Michael Ann Holly Fellow) explores how colonialism inaugurated an epistemological tradition molded by image-making and image reading that remains operational to this day. Images neither illustrate arguments; they are themselves the (colonial) argument. Nor are they documents of colonialism; they are colonialism in action. As art historians dealing with the visual colonial archive, and in the name of “historical truth” and “documental authority,” we often end up reifying the past in the present. Through the process of reproduction and circulation, we eternalize colonial epistemicide. How can we use the visual archives of power to elaborate on a critique of domination? How can we examine colonial visuality without eternalizing its spell in the present? How can we reclaim the ontology of critique as reparative? Inspired by the work of Aby Warbug and its projection onto new forms of visual exploration of the archive pursued by artists and filmmakers, Beleza-Barreiros elaborates on a methodological critique, visual archaeology, which provides a way of thinking visually. The image can cease to be a “thing” and instead become the process of its own deconstruction.

Presented in person in the Clark auditorium. A 5 pm reception in the Manton Research Center reading room precedes the event.

Image: Unknown photographer, Children of the Mission of Tchiivinguiro (detail), Angola, 19th century. Overseas Historical Archive, Lisbon, Portugal.