Reckoning and Repair
An experimental oral history podcast with artists, curators, and organizers speaking on the need for reckoning, and the (im?)possibilities of repair in art worlds and social spaces around the globe.
Season 2 of Reckoning and Repair: The Art of Resistance in Argentina endeavors to explore these stories and the legacy of art activists from Bueno Aires and beyond. Originally captured in Spanish from June to July 2022, these narratives have since been condensed and adapted into the English language to share these incredible artists and their activism more broadly.
Season 1, "The Art That's Touched Philadelphia", was recorded, written, and produced by students in "Conversations with Contemporary Artists" a course by Alissa Jordan at the Center for Experimental Ethnography. This CEE production runs alongside the 2023 exhibit "Rising Sun-Artists in an Uncertain America", an African American Museum of Philadelphia (AAMP) and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) collaboration. How do artists and organizers confront the troubling histories of Empire in their midsts? Is it even possible for colonially-based art institutions to meaningfully reckon with their own exclusionary histories? What models of reckoning and repair already exist in Philadelphia's art worlds?
Reckoning and Repair
S.2 Episode 1 // The Art of Remembering: Healing a Nation’s Wounds through Art with Marcelo Brodsky - voiced by Emilio T.
Marcelo Brodsky is an artist and human rights activist from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Brodsky’s art practice began to take off in the late twentieth century following Argentina’s last military dictatorship, a horrifically violent time during which he was forcibly exiled to Spain.
Situated on the border between installation, performance, photography, monument and memorial, Brodsky’s pieces blend text and images, often using figures of speech, to delve into the themes of disappearance and memory surrounding the over 30,000 victims of state-sanctioned terrorism during that time. In addition to his extensive work as an artist, Marcelo Brodsky is an active member of the human rights organization Asociación Buena Memoria, and he is a member of the Board of Directors of the Parque de la Memoria, the memorial park in Buenos Aires that honors the victims of the dictatorship.
His work is part of major collections, including but not limited to, the Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, TX), the Tate Collection (London), Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Argentina), Museo de Arte Moderno (Argentina), Center for Creative Photography (Tucson, AZ), and Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos (Chile).
From 1976 to 1983, the nation of Argentina fell under the control of El Proceso de Reorganización Nacional, Argentina’s last military dictatorship. This regime is characterized by how it suspended Congress and democracy, banned political parties, limited the civil liberties of the people and, and most importantly, disposed of any individuals who it deemed as a threat to its power. Nevertheless, in response to this regime, there arose a human rights movement throughout the nation—fueled by contemporary artists and art activists in Argentina. Today, art activism in Argentina has gained international distinction, anchored by its public and performance art scenes.
An experimental podcast project, season 2 of Reckoning and Repair: The Art of Resistance in Argentina endeavors to explore these stories and the legacy of art activists from Bueno Aires and beyond. Originally captured in Spanish from June to July 2022, these narratives have since been condensed and adapted into the English language to share these incredible artists and their activism more broadly. You can learn more and listen to extras at rnrphilly.com.
Audio Credits
- Vino Tinto by Serge Quadrado (CCBYNC 3.0.)
- In the Sweet By and By by Ben Seretan (CCBYNC 3.0.)
- RIVER gurgling in forest by nicoproson (CCBYNC 3.0)
For episode extras, and to learn more about the artists, hosts, and organizations involved, check out the Reckoning and Repair website: rnrphilly.com
This podcast was created at the Center for Experimental Ethnography at the University of Pennsylvania, a multimodal research hub that views creative practice as intellectual work that necessarily historicizes the inequalities that pervade our society, and that develops solutions for their present iterations through collaborative and participatory work.
