Original Copies and Obscure Traces: Ángela Bonadies' Metaphotographic Inquiries

Pressing at the boundaries of what defines culturally specific, photography-centric artwork, this book looks at how artists from across the Americas work with and through photography as a critical tool. My contribution to the book focuses on the Venezuelan artist Ángela Bonadies

Hubristic Hydraulics: Water, Dictatorship, and Modernity in the Dominican Republic

In this article, I focus on how water operated as symbolic capital during the notoriously repressive dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo (1930–61) in the Dominican Republic. Under his regime, alongside an apex of territorial control and modern aesthetics came a nadir of political freedoms. During Trujillo's tenure, water took on important symbolic and material dimensions as a conduit for authoritarianism: it served as a tool to bind together dictatorial power and spatial order through a mode of territorial and urban design rooted in hubristic hydraulics. With hubristic hydraulics I refer to the strategic ways that water flow was harnessed through infrastructure and choreographed through landscape and monumental architecture to embody and lionize the dictator's power. Channeled into reflecting pools, nationwide irrigation works, and monumental fountains, water functioned at the juncture of aesthetics and politics as an important tool in the modernization of urban space and the territory at large. Water was a strategic resource that enabled Trujillo to be cast as the “arquitecto de la patria nueva” (the architect of a new fatherland), and the ways it was made to flow through modern architecture and infrastructure offer an illuminating means to expose the entanglement of territorial control, urban modernity, and authoritarian politics

Contraflujos: Orden hidráulico y ecologías residuales en el paisaje dominicano

This article argues that transnational capitalism is buoyed up by a “hydraulic order:” a paradigm that advocates unfettered flows of capital, commodities, and people as conduits for development. I trace the asymmetries of this paradigm through the landscape formations and visual economy of the Dominican Republic’s mass tourist industry, highlighting how the State exercises “hydraulic power” (Deleuze & Guattari) to produce and regulate a Caribbean fantasy landscape. Against this spectacle, I analyze recent landscape representations in the visual arts to argue that in making visible residual ecologies, and marginal places and subjects, they create counterflows to hydraulic order. Este artículo sostiene que el capitalismo transnacional lo apuntala un “orden hidráulico”: un paradigma que propone los flujos desinhibidos de capital, bienes, y personas, como conductos del desarrollo. Rastreo las asimetrías de este paradigma en los paisajes y la economía visual de la industria de turismo masivo en la República Dominicana, mostrando cómo el Estado ejerce su “poder hidráulico” (Deleuze y Guattari) para producir y regular el paisaje como una fantasía caribeña. Contra este espectáculo, analizo representaciones recientes del paisaje en las artes visuales argumentando que al visibilizar ecologías residuales, y lugares y sujetos marginales, crean contraflujos en el orden hidráulico. Flujo; contraflujo; paisaje; turismo; residuo

Imaginando culturas hidrocomunes: investigaciones interdisciplinares y prácticas curatoriales entre ríos [Imagining Hydrcommons Cultures: Interdisciplinary Research and Curatorial Practices Between Rivers]

This article confronts the problems affecting the contemporary hydrosphere by proposing the global need to fairer, more empathic and sustainable water cultures. The objectives of the text are: 1. Theorize the hydrocommons as a conceptual framework for curatorial practices that can contribute to this task by creating public platforms that depart from artistic practices, interdisciplinary research, and engagement activities; 2. Demonstrate through curatorial projects by the international network entre—ríos how these principles have informed artist residencies and collaborative processes. The methodology comprises a discussion of “liquid ecologies” (Blackmore & Gómez, 2020) as a critical tool to think the entanglements of bodies of water with diverse historical and contemporary forms of ecological degradation, socioenvironmental conflicts and cognitive injustice. Next, it proposes the “hydrocommons” as a term capable of coining and imagining more conscientious and empathic dynamics and ways of relating through water, through an assemblage of multidisciplinary perspectives that sociopolitical, epistemological, legal, and aesthetic dimensions to this emergent critical-imaginative a language. The second part of the article explains how the curatorial hypotheses of entre—ríos emerged out of my research into “hydropower” and the hydrocommons, the curatorial turn toward ecological agendas, and artist residency projects I organised at the University of Essex. Finally, the article describes two collaborative curatorial projects by entre—ríos to detail in situ and digital dynamics activated to instigate critical and sensory connections to the problematics shaping bodies of water in Latin America. The article closes with a brief overview of the conceptual cornerstones of hydrocommons cultures and a reflection on challenges facing this emerging field

Online photography beyond the selfie: The “shareware body” as tactical media in works by Érika Ordosgoitti

The growth of internet penetration in Latin America, as digital culture scholars have revealed (Taylor & Pitman, 2013), has seen the emergence of tactical media practitioners who push the boundaries of aesthetic form and received discourses. This article examines the use of performance, photography and social media in works by Venezuelan artist Érika Ordosgoitti to assert that her use of Facebook is a deliberate form of “electronic disturbance” (Critical Art Ensemble, 1994) that expands the traditional spatial and temporal horizons of performance. By shorting conventional circuits for the circulation of art, Ordosgoitti’s practice engages broader audiences in critical debates about normative controls of photography and bodily representation in social media. Ultimately, the article contends that the depiction of artist’s nude body is a critical gesture that replaces the complacent selfie with a contestatory “shareware body”.La croissance de la pénétration de l’Internet en Amérique latine est témoin de l’émergence de professionnels des “media tactiques” qui repoussent les limites de l’esthétique et les discours conventionnels, dont les chercheurs de la culture numérique ont révélé (TAYLOR & Pitman, 2013). Notre article traite la performance, la photographie et les médias sociaux dans l’œuvre d’artiste vénézuéliene Érika Ordosgoitti. Je constate que son utilisation de Facebook fait partie d’une stratégie consciente de la "perturbation électronique" (critical disturbance) (CRITICAL ART ENSEMBLE, 1994) qui élargit les horizons spatiaux et temporels traditionnels de la performance. En faisant une court-circuite de la diffusion conventionnelle de l’art, nous engageons un public plus large dans les débats critiques autour des contrôles normatifs de la photographie et sa représentation corporelle dans les médias sociaux. Á la fin, nous maintenons que la représentation d’Ordosgoitti en corps nu représente un geste critique qui remplace la complaisance de la “selfie” avec un "corps de shareware" contestataire

Integrating local knowledge into a national programme: Evidence from a community-based diabetes prevention education programme

Type 2 diabetes prevention is a major priority for healthcare services and public health. This study aimed to evaluate how a local authority in England piloted a diabetes prevention programme. The South Gloucestershire Diabetes Prevention (Pilot) Programme (SGDPP) comprised a group health education course over six weeks with subsequent support provision up to six months post-enrolment. Of the 300 patients invited onto the programme, 32% enrolled and 29% completed the full six-month programme. There was an attendance rate of 84% throughout group sessions and at a six-month follow-up. There were significant improvements across most measures at six months, including a 4 kg mean weight loss and a 3.45 mmol/mol mean HbA1c reduction. Clear goals, high quality organization and personal qualities of educators were identified as central for the programme’s success. The unit costs were similar to pilots of other healthy lifestyle programmes. The evaluation found evidence of reduced type 2 diabetes risk markers, positive impacts for dietary and physical activity, and potential cost-effectiveness for this format of group-based diabetes prevention intervention. Feedback from multiple stakeholders provided insight on how to successfully embed and scale-up delivery of diabetes prevention work. This evidence enables the integration of learning in local service delivery and provides a basis to support development of the national diabetes prevention programme