Patricia Stout, EODIAH Research Fellow
O’Donnell Graduate Fellow Patricia Stout, who is currently working on the completion of her dissertation entitled “Aesthetics and Politics: Community-Based Art in Brazil,” has been selected to present research related to her dissertation at three virtual conferences during the 2020-2021 academic year.
In December, she was invited to participate in a panel entitled Agents of Social Change: Performance Art, Public Art, Street Art, and Social Practice in the Age of Resistance at SECAC (formerly known as the Southeastern College Art Conference). Patricia presented her paper “Eyes on the City: JR’s Women Are Heroes Project in Rio de Janeiro,” which focused on research from the third chapter of her dissertation. In her presentation she examined JR’s Women Are Heroes (2008-2009) project in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in which the French artist combined photography with architecturally-based community art to create a favela hillside of women’s eyes gazing down on the city. Her presentation highlighted ways in which JR’s community-based art project made visible particular members in society and called for social change within the city of Rio de Janeiro.
Most recently, Patricia collaborated with Dr. Monica Salazar, a former O’Donnell Graduate Fellow, to organize and co-chair a panel entitled Reimagining Landscapes in a Time of Crisis: Contemporary Latin American Art in Dialogue with the Natural World at the College Art Association (CAA) 2021 Annual Conference. In alignment with this year’s conference theme on the Climate Crisis, the panel explored how contemporary Latin American artists have established new ways of engaging with issues related to nature, the global climate crisis, and what it means to live in a more globalized society by creating interactive artworks both inside and outside traditional gallery spaces. The virtual conference was held on February 10-13, 2021, and the panel’s online Q&A session took place on Saturday, February 13, in which panelists discussed the works of Brazilian artists Néle Azevedo and Sandra Cinto, Chilean-born artist Cecilia Vicuña, Mexican-born artist Margarita Cabrera, and Polish-born Brazilian artist Frans Krajcberg.
Other presenters on the panel included Dr. Elizabeth Varela, former Curator of Research and Documentation at the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro, and Barbara Tyner, Ph.D. candidate at the Centro de Cultura Casa Lama in Mexico City. Patricia’s presentation was entitled “Reflections of Nature in Brazilian Art: Large-scale Participatory Artworks by Néle Azevedo and Sandra Cinto” and highlighted the recent works of both artists, including Sandra Cinto’s mural Landscape of a Lifetime at the Dallas Museum of Art, which was organized by Dr. Anna Katherine Brodbeck, the Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, and on view at the DMA from November 15, 2019 – November 1, 2020.
In May, Patricia will present research related to her final dissertation chapter on Brazilian artist Vik Muniz as part of the Imágenes, resistencia y negociación panel at the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) 2021 Virtual Congress.
Read more about Patricia Stout’s research and dissertation topic.