Nayla Vasquez
Pronouns: she/her/ella
Research Mentor(s): Melanie Manos
Co-Presenter:
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Stamps School of Art & Design / ART
Presentation Date: April 20
Presentation Type: Oral5
Session: Session 6 – 4:40pm – 5:30 pm
Room: Breakout room 1
Authors:
Presenter: 3
Abstract
Visualizing Women’s Work (VWW) is a research-based visual arts project addressing the public erasure of historical female figures and how rarely their work is commemorated through public monuments. The project examines gender bias in public historic visual culture with the goal of elevating the status of women-identified persons across cultures and socio-economic strata. As a contributing member of this project, I am focusing on adding Latinx LGBTQ+ and Latinx Women to the historical visual landscapes of Detroit and Chicago. As a Queer Puerto-Rican woman, this research is especially personal to me. I am finding the names and life stories of these women by digging through scholarly articles, library archives, biographical dictionaries, books about Chicago’s activist history, books about Detroit’s activist history, Queer history in the Midwest, and Latinx history in the Midwest. With a white male cishet-dominated history, it’s important to highlight the work of women with intersecting identities. Using my research of Latinx LGBTQ+ and Latinx Women, we will work towards the development and implementation of visual depictions of their work and/or activism, conveyed via augmented reality at target sitesin the Detroit and Chicago metropolitan areas. The goal is to address the overshadowing of female LGBTQ and Latinx women leaders and activists, shining a light on their stories and histories in order to bring public awareness to forgotten female figures in history.
Arts and Humanities, Interdisciplinary
