In times of conflict, art becomes a beacon of resistance and hope. During the military dictatorships in Latin America from 1960s and 1980s, defiance was fundamental in working against such oppressive regimes. First emerging as a way to communicate between artistic centers as a conceptual art practice and later transforming into a form of resistance as it bypassed censorship, mail art operated as a covert artform that spread ideas and pushback both internally and externally. This research explores how the medium of mail art, specifically in Argentina and Chile, was employed by artists to disseminate messages and oppose dictatorship. Mail art has existed more peripherally in the art historical scholarship and my paper resolves how intrinsically tied to resistance this medium is, specifically as it provides anonymity to artists, counters widespread censorship, and later serves as a testament to atrocities that occurred. Thus, looking at Argentine artists such as León Ferrari and Edgardo-Antonio Vigo, alongside the Chilean Arpillera movement, my paper situates what might be defined under the rubric of 'mail art' and moreover, the 'success' of the medium during repressive regimes. Such characteristics I consider are mail art's effective communication, its establishment within the larger scholarly field, and artistic engagement in political oppressive political arenas, to demonstrate a variety of cause and effects upon which mail art relies.

Q: And Babies? A: And Babies. was one of the most prominent antiwar posters produced by the Art Workers Coalition (AWC) in 1969. The combination of the shocking image of the My Lai massacre with text excerpted from an interview of Paul Meadlo elicited a strong reaction from its viewers. Shown first in the hands of protestors and now stored in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) collection, my paper examines how the changing location of the poster affects the function of the work. Building on scholarship surrounding the complex relationship between AWC and the MoMA, I examine the power relations imbued in institutions, alongside the portrayal of truth that the photograph provides. The photograph’s “truth,” as argued by John Tagg, can be multiple. When in the hands of a protestor, And Babies holds singular truth and at MoMA, it shifts to amplify the hegemonic forces behind an institution which dictate what's true or false. When And Babies is placed inside the white cube with multiple truths and is surrounded by works that lack the truth of a photograph, the viewer becomes more drawn to it and the multitude of its truth creates more empathy. Research has been done into the historical context of And Babies, as well as its complex and political relationship with the MoMA. However, my research differs by building on John Tagg’s The Burden of Representation: Essays on Photographies and Histories. I do this by expanding the ideas of photography being used by police as a signifier of guilt and how power structures relate to the nature of truth through resistance and a regime. This work demonstrates And Babies shifting meaning between the protestor and the museum.  

Recorded as horrific and savage by European colonizers in Brazil, ceremonial cannibalism was practiced by Indigenous groups, such as the Tupinambá, as way to pay respect and empathize with their enemies. The idea of cannibalism would later resurface in Oswald de Andrade’s Cannibalist Manifesto (1928) and was compared to the act of consumption as a symbolic and ritualistic act important to the establishment of a unique Brazilian identity. Throughout the twentieth century, the concept of antropofagia [cannibalism] has been interrogated more fully by artists and art historians in Brazil to understand a cultural syncretism. For example, contemporary artist Adriana Varejão’s Proposal for a Catechesis, Part I Diptych: Death and Dismemberment (1993) illustrates two powerful scenes connected to the colonial history of Brazil: the Catholic rite of transubstantiation and the engagement of Indigenous ritualistic consumption. Thus, this paper analyzes how Varejão’s comparisons between Catholicism and Indigenous religions demonstrate that cannibalism can be further troubled as it continues to be utilized as a stand-in for Brazilian culture. Her work demonstrates that beyond cannibalism’s reclamation and revitalization, a deeper reflection surrounding Christian religious rites might be examined.

Huincha sin fin (endless band) is an artwork which poses the question “where are they” in reference to missing persons during Chile’s Pinochet dictatorship of the 1970s and 80s; understanding where the work itself is illuminates the concerns of an artist living in a politically tumultuous era of Chile’s history and provides important context for Latin American conceptualism. Using political, feminist, and archival frameworks to analyze not only this work but the artist Luz Donoso herself, this paper will reveal art as action and provide a deeper understanding of the socio-political backdrop. This artwork is rarely expanded upon in the analysis of Chilean art or Latin American conceptualism, even though it acts as an ideal example of art during this time. Analyzing Huincha sin fin in greater detail exposes its exemplary nature and offers an important alternative viewpoint of a time when art, thought, and people were being silenced.

The Ardashrinama, known as the Book of Ardashir in English, is a 14th century Judeo-Persian epic poem which combines the life of the Sassanid emperor Ardashir with the Book of Esther in the Hebrew Bible, equating Ardashir with the biblical Persian king Achashverosh. This paper focuses on an illuminated version of this poem, which was created between the years 1650 and 1680, during or immediately after a period of intensified persecution of Jews under Shah Abbas II, marked by forced conversions to Islam and expulsions from metropolitan areas. The illuminations of the Ardashirnama are similar stylistically to well-known Islamic Safavid miniature paintings of the time, but they reflect rabbinic commentary on the book of Esther alongside Islamic mystical ideas, showcasing a partial assimilation of Persian Jewish art, literature and culture into the wider Islamic Persian community while maintaining a distinctly Jewish identity.

Bernini's David (1623) attempted and—in some capacities—succeeded in breaking the barrier between the viewer and the art. David's narrative is only completed through audience participation and then furthered through dialog with the other works displayed in the same space. Bernini's motivation for creating is key to understanding his incessant cultivation of technical skill and his drive to push the boundaries of possibility in Baroque sculpture. The work functions both alone and as a key sculpture in the oeuvre of Bernini. Framing the work with analysis from Wittkower, Wallace, and Lavin, I dissect what made David different from Bernini's earlier sculpture and how David became the precursor for his later work.

Climate change and anthropogenic pollution have led to a rise in coral bleaching events. These bleaching events cause the loss of corals’ symbiotic algae cells, depleting coral colonies’ energy and leaving them vulnerable to starvation and death. This study aimed to understand whether the sex of gonochoric corals (in which colonies are either male or female) has any correlation to corals’ growth and development, with implications for corals’ response to bleaching events. For the gonochoric species Porites compressa, preliminary results indicate that female colonies develop their gametes earlier in the year compared to males. Energy conserved to produce these lipid-rich eggs may limit the overall growth of female colonies. However, unlike male colonies, females might be able to resorb their eggs to better recover from bleaching events. In summer 2023, twenty-four P. compressa colonies from Kāne‘ohe Bay, HI were stained with an alizarin dye, sexed as male or female based on sperm/egg histology, and returned to the reef to measure one year of skeletal growth. Following their collection in the summer of 2024, eighteen surviving colonies were scanned using an Artec Spyder to produce 3D models revealing colony surface areas and volumes. We then cut cross-sections of each colony to reveal their alizarin growth bands from 2023, allowing us to determine the amount of growth from 2023-24. We anticipate that differences in growth rates will show that female colonies are saving energy by limiting their growth, leaving them less susceptible to bleaching compared to male colonies.