TOPIC: “ You Get What You Give - Creating belonging and the paradox of decolonial aesthetic”

Some believe decolonization is a process, dependent upon the expectation of transformation. And yet to decolonize refers to the process of decolonization. But in order to decolonize, do we need to continuously invoke or perpetuate colonialism? This talk articulates a view of the process of decolonization as a long term reclamation of ancestral ways of being, rather than a singular moment. This includes applying them to our creative practices without mimicking colonial oppressions, and collapsing those practices into closed idols. In this process we will discover how and why “iwa pele” and ancestor reverence are crucial for understanding the links between aesthesis and decolonial aesthetic.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Shylah Pacheco Hamilton is a rootworker, diviner, Assistant Professor in the First Year Program and Chair of Critical Ethnic Studies at California College of the Arts. She is a Board Member of the Edwidge Danticat Society, received her MFA in Film, Video, New Media, and Animation from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MA in Women, Gender, Spirituality, and Social Justice from California Institute of Integral Studies. Her academic research and creative practices meet at the crossroads of experimental video, decolonial feminisms, digital diasporas, ritual performance and visual culture. Her body of work consists of experimental films, and writing that explore liberation, dreams, and the ritual performances of the sacred.  MORE.