Imayna Caceres, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria
Alfredo Ledesma, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria:
How could art contribute to make sense of the ongoing conflicts over mining and territory from alternative perspective? Engaging with other modes of producing knowledge beyond the dominant Western tradition, two artists-researchers point connections to other modes of thinking with natural-cultural entities. Grounded in their history growing up in Peru, and thinking through performance and drawing, their writings pay attention to the ontological conflicts that are at the center of the struggles over mining in Peru. Alfredo Ledesma performs his hybrid beings (such as the Mountain self, the Jaguar self, the Sheep self) in order to explore imaginaries that have persisted as alternative horizons to the dominant system. He does this in towns impacted by mining projects to point to the alternative horizons that can be found in the struggles of various communities for “re-existence” (Porto and Leff 65-68). Imayna Caceres approaches an intuitive intersection of ecological, planetary concerns, where drawing works as an alternative method for knowledge production. Recalling their upbringing amid mestizo-indigenous practices that stem from Amazonian and Andean worlds, Caceres speculate about the more than human entities and relationalities that are centrally evoked by those rejecting mining.