Invocations of the Diaspora: A Conversation on the Art of Belonging

Organized by Harvard David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and Harvard History of Art
and Architecture Department.

Two decades ago, migration and diaspora were central topics in critical discourse. Today, a new
urgency is felt to revisit and reinvigorate the diaspora as a definitory experience of our times.
Invocations of the Diaspora: a conversation on the art of belonging returns to the diaspora not simply
as a condition of exile or distance, but as a generative position from which to rethink identity,
memory, aesthetics, space, and belonging.

This program is developed in conjunction with Three Variations of a Diasporic Landscape, on view at
DRCLAS until March 2026. This exhibition maps longing and belonging across personal and historical
terrains, exploring the cultural and political significance of the Latin American diaspora. Featuring
artists Sandra Gamarra, Naomi Gamarra, and Sarah Zapata, their work construct across the walls of
the Center an intimate geography of displacement—where nostalgia becomes a form of creative
reconstruction, and the absence of homeland gives rise to new visual and emotional landscapes.

Exhibition artist Sandra Gamarra, visual artists Tania Bruguera and Rubén Ortiz-Torres, curator
Evan Garza, scholar Nelson Maldonado Torres, and Harvard professor Doris Sommer will extend
and deepen the exhibition’s themes of liminality and in-betweenness.

Together, Invocations of the Diaspora: a conversation on the art of belonging asks why Latin America
continues to exclude its diaspora from regional imaginaries, even as diasporic communities reshape
its image abroad. At a time when nationalism threatens pluralism across the hemisphere, the
experiences of the diaspora—its aesthetic strategies, political insights, and emotional
architectures—offer a necessary framework for rethinking Latin America not as a fixed place, but as
a network of contested and evolving affiliations.

Artists and Speakers:

• Sandra Gamarra, Visual Artist. Known for Pinacoteca Migrante, representing Spain in the 60th Venice Biennale, with works in MoMA and Tate Museum.
• Tania Bruguera, Visual Artist and Senior Lecturer, Harvard University. Founder of Latin America’s first performance studies program, exploring art and political life.
• Rubén Ortiz-Torres, Visual Artist and Professor, UC San Diego. Works across photography, video, painting, and installations; leading figure in Mexican postmodernism.
• Evan Garza, Curator, MASS MoCA. Contemporary art scholar and curator, former Artistic Director of the 2021 Texas Biennial.
• Nelson Maldonado Torres, Professor of Philosophy, UConn. Expert on modernity/coloniality, decoloniality, and liberation ethics.
• Doris Sommer, Professor of Romance Languages, Harvard University. Founder of Cultural Agents, promoting civic engagement through the arts.

Moderators:

• Patricio del Real, Associate Professor of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University
• Thomas Cummins, Director of Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard University
• Jose Falconi, Assistant Professor of Art and Human Rights, University of Connecticut