Gordon-Burroughs, Jessica
Lecturer in Latin American Studies and Visual Culture @ University of Edinburgh
Bio
Dr Jessica Gordon-Burroughs is Lecturer in Latin American Studies and Visual Culture at the University of Edinburgh. Jessica received her Ph.D. and B.A. from Columbia University. Her research has been supported by the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University, the Elmer Adler Fund in graphic arts at Princeton University, and The Carnegie Trust. Her essays have appeared in Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, Cinema Journal, Discourse, among other journals and collections. In 2020, Jessica's article "The Pixelated Afterlife of Nicolás Guillén Landrián: Migratory Forms" (JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies 59, no. 2 (2020): 23-42) was awarded the Best Essay in Latin American Visual Culture Studies by the Latin American Studies Association (LASA).
Geographical location : Edinburgh, UK
Research Area and Interest :
Social Media
Panel(s)
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Presentation(s)
- Summary: In 1968, Scottish and Puerto Rican calligraphers Stuart Berry and Lorenzo Homar corresponded on the use of “lettering” in Homar’s work following Homar’s recent visit to Edinburgh, Scotland. According to Berry, the students managed to approximate Homar’s artistry found in the posters he had left for teaching purposes at Edinburgh College of Art, but somehow misunderstood their politics; reducing Homar’s lettering to form. This paper will use the Berry-Homar encounter as a point of departure to discuss the potentiality, yet also troubled nature, of transnational dialogues and conversations. I will use the recent work of Puerto Rican artists Emilia Beatriz and Sofía Gallisá Muriente to explore the renewed possibilities of these exchanges. Specifically, my paper will explore Emilia Beatriz’s installation at the Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA Glasgow), Declarations on Soil and Honey (2019), and the companion book of recipes for Grief into Action, collectively authored by poets, artists and activists from Scotland and Puerto Rico; alongside Gallisá Muriente’s moving image work Assimilate and Destroy, exhibited in tandem with Emilia Beatriz’s work at CCA. I will argue that within these works may be detected an unexpected horizon of possibility for transnational, transcontinental and intergenerational conversations about politics and colonialism through the movement between film, the natural world, and the material culture of books, the letter, and the spoken word.