OPEN CALL: Writer in Residence at the Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA)

Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA) is delighted to announce the call for proposals for its Summer 2023 Writer in Residence program. For the first time since this program’s founding in 2018, ISLAA is issuing an open call for proposals. We invite emerging and established researchers worldwide to apply, including students, faculty, and independent scholars.

The Writer in Residence program offers a first look at newly processed primary sources and provides the opportunity to conduct research on exceptional artists and movements from postwar and contemporary Latin American art.

This summer, selected Writers in Residence will work remotely to explore materials from one of three fully digitized collections from the ISLAA Library and Archives: the Manuel Herreros de Lemos and Mateo Manaure Arilla Collection, a collection of selected artist’s books by Anna Bella Geiger, and the “El Dibujazo” Collection. Residents will produce an essay based on their selected digital collection, in alignment with their own research interests and expertise. Each selected participant will be awarded a $2,000 grant in recognition of these research and writing endeavors.

The application materials required include a research proposal, a CV, and a writing sample. Find out more about residency conditions and submission requirements here.

Application deadline: April 30, 2023

If you have questions about the ISLAA Writer in Residence program, please email Blanca Serrano Ortiz de Solórzano, ISLAA project director: blanca.serranoortiz@islaa.org.

The three digital collections selected for the Summer 2023 call for proposals are:

The Manuel Herreros de Lemos and Mateo Manaure Arilla Collection

This archival collection includes a restored digital edition of the film TRANS, a 1982 documentary film depicting transgender women in Caracas, shot by Manuel Herreros de Lemos and Mateo Manaure Arilla. Shown publicly only once, at the Cinemateca Nacional de Venezuela in 1983, this rare film pays homage to the testimonies and experiences of transgender women and bears witness to their experiences of transphobia and discrimination. The collection also includes photographic prints taken by Herreros de Lemos during the documentary’s preproduction phase and ephemera related to the film.

All written documents and ephemera in this collection are in Spanish.

Artist’s books by Anna Bella Geiger

This collection comprises seventeen artist’s books by Brazilian conceptual artist Anna Bella Geiger. Executed between 1974 and 1977, the spiral-bound notebooks, which contain pencil and ink sketches as well as collages, examine the conditions that drove artistic production in Brazil at the time of their production, considering questions of cultural hegemonies and interdependencies, marginality and domination within space and language, and the role of perspective and perception therein. Featured titles include A Alimentação (1975), Admissão (1975), História do Brasil (1975–76), and Sobre a arte (1976).

All written documents and ephemera in this collection are in Portuguese.

“El Dibujazo” Collection

In the 1960s, young artists in Uruguay turned to the medium of drawing and experimented with neorealism and neo-Expressionism. Often known as “El Dibujazo,” this generation explored the changing sociopolitical cityscape of Montevideo and reflected on topics such as mass media and class struggles. This collection attests to the vibrancy of Montevideo’s gallery scene at that time and includes more than one hundred works on paper in graphite, ink, mixed media, watercolor, and posters by artists such as Eduardo Fornasari, Alberto Schunk, and Marta Restuccia.

All written documents and ephemera in this collection are in Spanish.