Un]Mapping: Decolonial Cartographies of Place

BEATRIZ YANES MARTINEZ 
Board of Advisors Mutual Learning Fellow, Curatorial and Exhibitions 
Hood Quarterly, summer 2024
 
 

we, river our hands, 

bend reality with dreams wished for us  

by our ghosts. we, river ribbons onto 

the land, water's course is stitched 

blue thread or dried clay foraged from 

blue thread or dried clay foraged from 

full of meaning. we, river, in joy… 

—Sarah Audsley, poet 

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Kiara Aileen Machado, "Tres Fronteras (Three Borders)," 2019, oil on canvas. Purchased through the Robert J. Strasenburgh II 1942 Fund; 2023.27. © Kiara Aileen Machado

How do maps shape your ideas of place? That is one of the questions I hope audiences will reflect on as they engage with my exhibition, [Un]Mapping: Decolonial Cartographies of Place. This show focuses on the work of artists such as Sarah Sense, Carolina Aranibar Fernandez, and Ruben Olguin, whose practices critique colonial legacies of cartographies while inviting viewers to think about alternatives for visualizing our relationship to place.  

When I began curating this exhibition, I knew that I wanted to incorporate different forms of engagement with the artworks I'd selected. As a curator, and a poet, I see the potential for creating avenues to incorporate poetry within the interpretative strategies of exhibitions. After all, there is not only a legacy of artist-poets but also a rich tradition of ekphrastic poetry, or poetry written about works of art. For example, one of the works in the exhibition, Spatial Poem No. 1, by artist Mieko Shiomi, was created after Shiomi prompted participants across the world to write a word and share the location of where they wrote it, thereby creating a form of global collaborative poetry. With this in mind, I commissioned poet Sarah Audsley, a Korean American adoptee based in rural Vermont, to write a poem that reflects on the works of art and theme of the exhibition. Audsley's poem uses river tributaries to weave in a conversation between different artworks in the exhibition, reminding us of the importance of our waterways.  

To expand on the element of poetic encounters in the exhibition, I also proposed the creation of a zine—usually a self-published fanzine or magazine—to guide audiences through the themes of counter-cartographies and placemaking that are present throughout the show. Because the show is an invitation for audiences to think about alternatives for visualizing our relationship to place, this zine will act as a prompt for visitors to reflect on their memories, constructions, and relationships to place. I'm inviting audiences to write their poetry or draw their own artworks inspired by the works of art in the exhibition, by their reflections about place, or by the poetry written by Audsley.  

I've come to understand that my practice as a poet and a curator are complementary, and rather than try to keep them separate, I have begun to allow them to coexist through the curation of the exhibition [Un]Mapping.  

[Un]Mapping: Decolonial Cartographies of Place is organized by the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, and generously supported by the William Chase Grant 1919 Memorial Fund.