ALINE HERNÁNDEZ

curator in residence @ niki

9 May - 30 May 2022

TALK:
(In)Visible Bodies of Violence: Photography, Performance, and the Gendered Economies of Death

17 May 2022, 19:00

@ Weißenburgstraße 2a, Hannover

This talk will focus on the topic of gender violence in a broader sense, and its photographic representation in particular. Utilising constellations from my press photographic archive, I will explore the performative dynamics that work through mainstream photojournalistic images of gender violence. To further offer critical insights into the function of photographs, I will engage with the expressive work of feminist artists who have recently placed the ‘protocol rules’ of photojournalism under critical scrutiny. Linking these practices, I will offer an analytical framework for understanding the complex interplay between showing and doing violence.

Aline Hernández (Mexico, 1988) is an art historian, exhibition curator, and writer. Currently, she is conducting a SGSAH-funded PhD on the politics of representation of gender violence in Mexico at St Andrews University. Her research focuses on the political work that photography and contemporary visual art perform, emphasizing feminist strategies of resistance with and against images. 

Previously, she has held positions at Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC), The European Biennial of Contemporary Art, Centro de la Imagen, Real Academia de España en Roma, and ESPAC Espacio de Arte Contemporáneo. 

She has also (co-)curated and organized exhibitions, programs, and events at museums and cultural centres, including Landscapes of Abstraction at Real Academia de España en Roma (2021), Fluctuations at Museo de la Ciudad de Cuernavaca (MuCIC), Mexico (2021), Feminisms and Speculative Imaginations at Museo de Artes y Ciencias (MUCA Roma) / Museo de Mujeres (MUMA), Mexico (2018), Crisis of Imagination? Symbolic Power and Radical Imagination at Museo Experimental El Eco, Mexico (2015), Pola Wess: The T.V. Sees You at Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC), Mexico (2015), and Thresholds 1.5: Mexican Photography at Expo Fotograma, Encuentro Internacional de Fotografía, Uruguay (2013). 

Her writing has been presented at conferences internationally and published by museums and journals, including Contemporary Theatre Review, TEOR/ética, Parkett, The New Inquiry, Das Superpaper, Kunstlicht, and the Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo. 

Together with Hemdat Kislev, she is the co-editor in chief of Formations, a journal for art history and visual culture affiliated to the School of Art History at St Andrews University.