Last Friday (January 31st), we had our second meeting of the K’acha Willaykuna Our Unlearning Hour. (We meet every Friday, 9:30-10:30am, at the Heirloom Café in the Wexner Center for the Arts – come and join us!). During our meeting, we welcomed new members (Alex Adcock & Kat Arndt) and reflected on the past week, as well as older experiences and projects (including Tania Espinales Correa’s former position at the National Fund for Culture and Arts (Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, FONCA) in Mexico City). We also shared our thoughts on the topic of masks, in general and in terms of last semester’s performance by K’acha Willaykuna Artist in Residence Sebastián Calfuqueo Aliste. Ann Hidalgo shared an article she had read in the NYT of projections of Abraham Lincoln (Hilarie M. Sheets (2020) ‘A Monument Man Gives Memorials New Stories to Tell’), while Richard Fletcher described his Mask/Media project in his classes this semester, as well as the Gauri Gill exhibition at CMA and Candice Hopkins on masks. Michelle Wibbelsman reflected on the raw materials of masks, as well in terms of the Andean concept of chaka (ladder/bridge). She also brought up the intriguing issue of the voice, specifically the high-pitched voice for a soul speaking through the mask. In our discussion of Sebastián Calfuqueo Aliste’s performance and the idea of the mask, Tania Espinales Correa asked how is nudity a kind of mask and what is behind nudity for a transgender artist? Michelle Wibbelsman commented on the use of the wig and the wearing high heels as a form of masking, as well as the use of the phrase NOT ME/KNOT ME (anuda me) in the performance. Guillermo Paredes Orozco asked if the students seeming to back away during the performance was a result of the difference of the ‘other’ (as a remnant of 19th century European constructions of the ‘savage’) or of something else?
Readings
- Caroline Shipley (2020) ‘This is Not a Translatiion of the Accompanying Text in Quechua’ – shared by Tania Espinales Correa
- Hilarie M. Sheets (2020) ‘A Monument Man Gives Memorials New Stories to Tell’ (NYT article) shared by Ann Hidalgo
Links
- OhioHabla Episodio 95 Artista Mapuche: Sebastián Calfuqueo Aliste – shared by Michelle Wibbelsman
- National Fund for Culture and Arts (Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, FONCA) – shared by Tania Espinales Correa
- Museo Rafael Coronel has a collection of thousands of masks (pictured above) – shared by Tania Espinales Correa
- First Knowledge Equity Working Group meeting will take place February 11th, 2020 at 2:30-4pm in Thompson Library Room 204 (organized by Pamela Espinosa de los Monteros and Eric Johnson)
Past newsletters will be archived at https://minusplato.com/kacha-willaykuna/newsletters