An installation showcasing the experiences of migrant women from Latin America, co-curated by associate professor of anthropology and human rights César Abadía Barrero, is now on display at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.
The installation Ancestors Today: Visual Stories of Migrant Women, is part of the Wadsworth’s Entre Mundos: Art of Abiayala exhibit, which will remain on display until Sunday, Dec. 15, 2024.
The installation which features sewn and crotchet representations of the Latin American kitchen is the culmination of work that is part of Abadía-Barrero’s new initiative called “Buen Vivir and Collective Healings.” The initiative aims to explore non-traditional pathways to healing for groups that have experienced ongoing colonial violence.
Abadía-Barrero says this initiative grew out of work he previously did with Camilo Ruiz, assistant professor of anthropology, that focused on those impacted by armed conflict in Colombia especially women who experienced sexual violence. Participants in that research used art as a form of healing which allowed them to tell their stories outside of the traditional judicial system and without the narrative of victimhood, Abadía-Barrero says.
“The idea was to help these women move beyond the victim narrative, constantly retelling their painful histories in courts and truth commissions,” Abadía-Barrero says. “We wanted them to engage with healing from a different perspective—one that emphasizes resilience, creativity, and hopes for the future.”
Abadía-Barrero then wanted to see how he could continue to use art to understand the lived experiences of other groups impacted by colonial violence and help them heal. So, with funding from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Human Rights Institute, and the Department of Anthropology, Abadía-Barrero invited Francisco Huichaqueo, an acclaimed Indigenous filmmaker and curator, to be the first artist-in-residence for the Buen Vivir and Collective Healings initiative.
During the 2023-2024 academic year, Abadía-Barrero, Ruiz, Huichaqueo, and Catalina Alvarado, a Ph.D. candidate in Anthropology, collaborated with Arte Popular, a Hartford-based migrant women’s group, to produce art to connect them with their ancestral roots and homelands. This collective effort invited the women to use art to express their memories of growing up in Latin America and the Caribbean, reclaim their dignity, and affirm their cultural identity.
Huichaqueo worked with the women of Arte Popular to help them create visual representations of the Latin American kitchen. Abadía-Barrero said this theme resonated with many of the women, who had memories of the kitchens of their youth in their native countries like Guatemala, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, and Colombia.
Abadía-Barrero says the artwork became an opportunity for them to reconnect with their heritage, as they remembered Indigenous words, practices, and family traditions.
“It was wonderful to see how the women began to open up through the process of creating these artworks,” Abadía-Barrero says. “As they crafted, they remembered things they hadn’t thought about in years. Many began to express pride in their Indigenous identity, something they had suppressed.”
The installation was initially on display at the Hispanic Health Council for two weeks in May and featured vegetables, including corn, which holds significant cultural and healing value in many Indigenous traditions. To abide by strict museum guidelines on the use of food and living organisms, the artists got creative in modifying the installation. A teen artist taught the other members of the group how to crochet fruits and vegetables so they could make crochet versions for the museum installation.
Huichaqueo also worked with the Wadsworth to include Indigenous artifacts from the museum’s collections alongside the women’s artwork.
Abadía-Barrero says blending contemporary and archaeological objects was intentional and meant to challenge traditional views on how “objects” carry ancestral time and spirituality. It also fit into Huichaqueo’s personal initiatives to force museums to confront their legacies of colonialism.
“It was important to include these archaeological pieces because it forced the museum to consider the colonial history of how these pieces came to be in their collection,” Abadía-Barrero explains. “By combining them with the artwork of these migrant women, we not only acknowledged this history but also redefined the museum space through the voices and spirits of the women and their ancestors.”
Abadía-Barrero says the project was an opportunity for the women of Arte Popular “to create something that brought back memories and to present those memories to the Hartford community.”
Abadía-Barrero says a digital archive of the installation will be hosted on Huichaqueo’s website and on the Buen Vivir and Collective Healings initiative website. He added that he’s hoping to conduct further research on the impact of healing through collective art.
“The women decided to donate their artwork to the museum, and the museum gladly accepted to include their pieces in their collection. Both their art and the digital archive ensures that these voices and stories are not lost,” he says.
