Ileana L . Selejan

This article focuses on the early careers of Margarita Montealegre and Claudia Gordillo, both of whom produced substantial photographic documentation of Nicaragua during the Sandinista Revolution (1978–1990). Working around the ideological strictures of that moment, I propose reading their work against inherited notions on how political imagery should operate in a revolutionary context. Rejecting the demand for sensationalist images, Montealegre and Gordillo turned their gaze toward fellow citizens, using the camera as a means to observe Nicaraguan society up-close. Aesthetically and politically, each pursued different, yet intersecting directions in their work, exploring how revolutionary ideals, and social change intertwined. The Revolution marked a moment of profound historic change, whereby identities were shaped and political imaginaries formed in ways that remain consequential to date. Revisiting these photographers’ archives now, across the span of four decades, reveals previ...

... 7. See part 3, “Media,” for further analysis of this scene. ... Im-ages” was written for the conference held by the University of Chicago's Cultural Policy program in ... the Sensation exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, and appears in Unsettling “Sensation”: Arts-Policy Lessons from the ...

The 2018 anti-government protests in Nicaragua generated a vast amount of photographic imagery, video documentation, and visual graphics. On the street and via social media, everyday citizens engaged with this material, activating a multisensory environment. The production of visual content was nonetheless accompanied by iconoclastic gestures; vandalism became a means of reclaiming Nicaragua’s revolutionary past and its symbols, while deploying them towards the making of a yet to be imagined political future. Drawing on examples from Chile and Mexico, the article argues that acts of vandalism may be understood as symbolically reparative. The materiality of the protests, manifested through image, trace, gesture, and sound (slogans, chants, noise) becomes a means towards analysing, ethnographically, revolutionary imaginaries caught within the flux of an unsettled present.

The 2018 anti-government protests in Nicaragua generated a vast amount of photographic imagery, video documentation, and visual graphics. On the street and via social media, everyday citizens engaged with this material, activating a multisensory environment. The production of visual content was nonetheless accompanied by iconoclastic gestures; vandalism became a means of reclaiming Nicaragua’s revolutionary past and its symbols, while deploying them towards the making of a yet to be imagined political future. Drawing on examples from Chile and Mexico, the article argues that acts of vandalism may be understood as symbolically reparative. The materiality of the protests, manifested through image, trace, gesture, and sound (slogans, chants, noise) becomes a means towards analysing, ethnographically, revolutionary imaginaries caught within the flux of an unsettled present.

This article presents a case study of the Solentiname archipelago in Nicaragua theorised as a site for the construction of utopia, an idealised environment where an alternative community was formed during the 1960s and 1970s, in opposition to the Somoza dictatorship (1936–79). The leadership of Ernesto Cardenal led to the creation of an enduring cultural legacy, which was essential to the development of the Sandinista revolutionary movement as well as to sustaining the Sandinista government following the victory in July 1979, particularly during the Contra War (1981–90). Applying art historical analysis, the article investigates how photography contributes to the formation of revolutionary identities, by fulfilling both descriptive and ideological purposes. Despite the scarcity of the surviving visual record from the islands, I argue that photographs of the site were fundamental in establishing the role of the community as a strategic ally for the rising opposition against the Somoza dictatorship. Not only did photography help envision utopia, it equally contributed to situating these hopes in the context of daily realities, resisting the regime. Other forms of art and literature that developed in Solentiname in the years leading up to the Revolution of 1978–79 further shaped revolutionary identities, as grievances about poverty, inequality and political repression were expressed through egalitarian high–low aesthetics. The case of Solentiname thus serves to open a discussion concerning under-explored cultural alliances within Latin America and beyond, providing a close-up view of localised aesthetic practices seen in relation to transnational solidarity networks, framed by the context of the massive sociopolitical transformations underway during the Cold War.

Zigzagging through personal memory and historical episodes of great consequence – the fall of the Berlin wall, the Romanian revolution and the April 2018 protests in Nicaragua – the essay seeks points of connection between the personal and the political, exploring how the two are intimately and inextricably intertwined. The textual approach can be situated in-between historical analysis and auto-biographical fiction; the aim is to enable multi-layered narratives, and contrasting, conflicting temporalities to co-exist. Illustrative of this intent, Romanian artist Călin Man intervenes upon the more well-known documentary photographs referenced in the text, by conflating them with everyday snapshots from the city of Arad taken at different points along the temporal arc described. Keywords: documentary, memory, personal history, photography, revolution, transnationalism

By placing on view a large selection of objects recently acquired by the New York Museum of Modern Art, the exhibition Incident Transgressions: Report on “Transmissions: Art in Eastern Europe and Latin America 1960–1980” (September 5, 2015 to January 3, 2016) sought to situate artistic practices from Latin America and Eastern Europe within a discursive model of cross-cultural and aesthetic transmission. However, the exhibition marginalized an account of the specific relations between these objects in favor of a more encompassing global curatorial narrative. While seeking to outline the parameters of the exhibition, and its implications in regard to contemporary trends in art history and museology, the text aims to highlight some of the instances of transmission and contact, both real and imagined, between the objects displayed.

"Measuring the World: Photography, Geography and Description" (Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Sep 16th – Dec 13th 2015) explores how the camera can function as a device for measuring the world, mediating relations between individuals and their surrounding environments. Drawn from the Museum’s extensive collection of historic to contemporary photography, the exhibition invites viewers to consider ideas about land and colonial expansion, mapping, the World Atlas, the question of scale, travel, tourism, and globalization.

Charlotte Brooks at LOOK, 1951-1971. Beverly Brannan, Vicki Goldberg, edited and with an essay by Ileana Selejan. Exhibition catalogue. Wellesley, MA: Davis Museum at Wellesley College, 2016.

Charlotte Brooks at LOOK, 1951­-1971 was the first retrospective exhibition dedicated to the career of one of the most important American female photographers from the postwar era. Best known for her work at Look magazine between 1951 and 1971, Brooks’ output represents a significant contribution to the visual history of the United States at mid­-century. The exhibition received press coverage from TIME magazine, The Washington Post, and Allure. It was reviewed by The Boston Globe.