Al Lado, Afuera. // Beside, Outside.: The Performance of Solidarity between Archive and Repertoire in Guatemala and Canada
My research-creation dissertation investigates the question 'how are human rights enacted/performed? by examining solidarity activism in Guatemala and the hemispheric networks that enable it. The essay film al lado, afuera. // beside, outside. (2018, 21:12 min.), a synthesis of interviews with contemporary activists looks at human rights accompanimentthe process of situating oneself as an unarmed volunteer, assuming a physical presence alongside social activists who are victims of political threats, in order to dissuade violence, bear witness, and activate international solidarity networks. The performatic repertoire of accompaniment activism is explored upon the backdrop of the LAWG (Latin American Working Group)s collection of solidarity documents (1965-1997) and a large wall drawing that maps my research on networks of solidarity activism, thereby contextualizing this little-known embodied activist practice and exploring entanglements between the material archive and the ephemeral repertoire. Solidarity movement ephemera and a series of posters, created from graphic and textual elements of selected LAWG documents, highlight the material and historical foundation of todays accompaniment activism in Guatemala. By continuing to scan these documents in the gallery space as a durational performance throughout the exhibition, I highlight the labour performed in solidarity activism, and the change-of-state from paper materials to digital files, thereby mirroring of the trajectory from pre-Internet campaigns of letter-writing, information bulletins, flyers and posters, etcetera to todays digital forms of solidarity mobilization, and the various temporalities of solidarity. In transforming the collection from a material to a digital archive, I am creating an open source online repository of these crucial materials, as well as a gallery installation that highlights the aesthetics and materiality of pre-Internet solidarity activism, posing the question how does the materiality of solidarity evidenced in the LAWG collection work in tandem with embodied performances of solidarity activism?
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations