This thesis responds to the dearth of detailed studies of pioneering African modernists; and the need for fresh theoretical frameworks for the interpretation of their art. Building on recent scholarship that applies decolonisation as an epistemic framework, it argues that a productive decolonial discourse needs to consider concurrent forms of nationalism and cultural agency in both the anti/colonial and postcolonial periods. Central to this approach is an analysis of the aesthetic responses of artists to the experiences and legacies of colonialism. This thesis is grounded in a study of Malangatana Valente Ngwenya (1936-2011), Mozambique’s most celebrated artist. It draws substantially on archival material and rare publications, mostly in Portuguese. The artist’s career is located within changing social and political contexts, specifically the anti/colonial period, and the promise and collapse of the postcolonial revolutionary project, with the pervasive influence of the Cold War highlighted. Following the advent of globalisation, the artist’s role in normalising postcolonial relations with Portugal is foregrounded. Parallel to his contribution to Mozambican art and society, Malangatana features prominently in surveys of modern African art. The notion of the artist fulfilling divergent social roles at different points in time for evolving publics is linked to an analysis of his emergence as a composite cultural sign: autodidact; revolutionary; cultural ‘ambassador’; and global citizen. The artist’s decolonial aesthetics are positioned in relation to those of his pan-African peers, with four 6 themes elaborated: colonial assimilation; anti-colonial resistance; postcolonial dystopia; and the articulation of a new Mozambican identity. Key to this analysis is an elaboration of the concept of the polemic sign, initially proposed by Jean Duvignaud (1967), adapted here to interpret the artist’s predilection for composite visual signs that, in their ambivalence and often provocative significations, resist processes of definitive translation. It is argued that through a juxtaposition of disparate forms of signs, and the simultaneous deployment of semi-realist and narrative pictorial strategies, the artist develops a complex, eclectic and evocative aesthetic that requires critical and open-ended engagement. The thesis concludes with provocative questions regarding the extent to which the artist’s aesthetics reflect hegemonic national narratives, or act to unsettle these. of a new Mozambican identity. Key to this analysis is an elaboration of the concept of the polemic sign, initially proposed by Jean Duvignaud (1967), adapted here to interpret the artist’s predilection for composite visual signs that, in their ambivalence and often provocative significations, resist processes of definitive translation. It is argued that through a juxtaposition of disparate forms of signs, and the simultaneous deployment of semi-realist and narrative pictorial strategies, the artist develops a complex, eclectic and evocative aesthetic that requires critical and open-ended engagement. The thesis concludes with provocative questions regarding the extent to which the artist’s aesthetics reflect hegemonic national narratives, or act to unsettle these.

<p>This dissertation centers on the relationship between art and politics in postwar Central America as materialized in the specific issues of racial and gendered violence that derive from the region's geopolitical location and history. It argues that the decade of the 1990s marks a moment of change in the region's cultural infrastructure, both institutionally and conceptually, in which artists seek a new visual language of experimental art practices to articulate and conceptualize a critical understanding of place, experience and knowledge. It posits that visual and conceptual manifestations of violence in Central American performance, conceptual art and installation extend beyond a critique of the state, and beyond the scope of political parties in perpetuating violent circumstances in these countries. It argues that instead artists use experimental practices in art to locate manifestations of racial violence in an historical system of domination and as a legacy of colonialism still witnessed, lived, and learned by multiple subjectivities in the region. In this postwar period artists move beyond the cold-war rhetoric of the previous decades and instead root the current social and political injustices in what Aníbal Quijano calls the `coloniality of power.' Through an engagement of decolonial methodologies, this dissertation challenges the label "political art" in Central America and offers what I call "visual disobedience" as a response to the coloniality of seeing. I posit that visual colonization is yet another aspect of the coloniality of power and indispensable to projects of decolonization. It offers an analysis of various works to show how visual disobedience responds specifically to racial and gender violence and the equally violent colonization of visuality in Mesoamerica. Such geopolitical critiques through art unmask themes specific to life and identity in contemporary Central America, from indigenous genocide, femicide, transnational gangs, to mass imprisonments and a new wave of social cleansing. I propose that Central American artists--beyond an anti-colonial stance--are engaging in visual disobedience so as to construct decolonial epistemologies in art, through art, and as art as decolonial gestures for healing.</p> / Dissertation

« La forme-frontalière : la quête du Nouveau Cinéma Latino-américain d’une esthétique décoloniale » porte un regard actuel sur les débats autour du cinéma et sa capacité d’agir sur le plan géopolitique. Pendant les années 1960 et 1970, les cinéastes du Nouveau Cinéma Latino-américain ont cherché à construire un « nouvel homme latino-américain » appelé à faire la révolution à travers un cinéma de décolonisation. Les six films analysés dans ce travail abordent cette esthétique décoloniale en s'appuyant sur la tradition artistique latino-américaine du syncrétisme culturel dont la pierre angulaire est une appropriation transgressive de l'héritage de la culture coloniale : le Baroque. Dans le premier chapitre nous avons voulu expliquer les racines baroques de la forme-frontalière du NCL. À travers des théories sur la spécificité de la culture latino-américaine, de la littérature et des beaux-arts nous retraçons la ligne historique d’un « esprit décolonial latino-américain » – toujours nourrie par le Baroque – depuis le XVIIème jusqu’à nous jours. En suivant la pensée des spécialistes du Baroque latino-américain, nous proposons que les formes baroques latino-américaines réapparaissent en raison de « cycles » dont le NCL serait le dernier « recyclage » de cette tradition esthétique. Ainsi, le NCL témoignerait une « transposition » du baroque latino-américain au cinéma et d’une « légitimation » de la culture latino-américaine pendant un bouleversement géopolitique. Dans le deuxième chapitre nous avons tenu à expliquer les caractéristiques de la forme-frontalière du NCL et de ses origines dues au processus de transculturation mis en place depuis la « découverte » de l’Amérique. Nous affirmons que l’esthétique du NCL est décolonial car il atteste d’un jeu de perspectives entre les frontières de la modernité, de la colonialité et de l’extra-modernité. Nous analysons le détournement décolonial du NCL à travers deux axes principales : l’esthétique baroque latino-américaine et le Néoréalisme italien. Le Baroque latino-américain, éclectique et parfois anti-colonial, se voit reflété dans l’esprit d’inclusion des formes sensibles de différentes épistémologies. Par rapport à l’influence du Néoréalisme, nous proposons l’hypothèse que ce cinema est aussi l’héritier de la tradition esthétique du Baroque italien. À partir de cette idée nous essayons de tracer deux lignes de développement parallèles et synchroniques de l’histoire du cinéma, d’un côté le « Classicisme cinématographique » et de l’autre le « Baroque cinématographique ». Le Classicisme cinématographique est l’héritier du Classicisme historique et ses fondements formels se trouvent dans le cinéma classique d’Hollywood qui est l’aboutissement d’un système de représentation cohérente. Le Baroque au cinéma, au contraire, est héritier du Baroque historique, c’est-à-dire d’une « autre » esthétique moderne, souterraine et subalterne propre à l’Europe méridionale et au monde colonial. Ainsi, le NCL propose une vision « contre-hégémonique », « subalterne » et « subversive » de l’Amérique latine qui s’oppose à l’histoire officielle du sous-continent. Cette histoire et ce cinéma officiels produits par les élites n'inclussent pas dans les cosmovisions amérindiennes et afro-américaines. Le NCL est produit principalement du point de vue de la colonialité, mais aussi de l’extra-modernité, vers la modernité, détournement du système de représentation classique, qui essaie de tourner en « dérision », ou de rendre « carnavalesque », des formes esthétiques hégémoniques. Le détournement décolonial de l’idée de l’« Amérique latine » aboutit, à travers des formes filmiques, un cinéma, et donc une œuvre artistique, qui peut développer l’imaginaire de la décolonisation. / "The Border-Form: The Quest for New Latin American Cinema with Decolonial Aesthetics" takes a current look at the debates around the cinema and its ability to act on the geopolitical level. During the 1960s and 1970s, filmmakers of the New Latin American Cinema sought to build a "new Latin American man" called to make the revolution through a decolonization cinema. The six films analyzed in this work address this decolonial aesthetic based on the Latin American artistic tradition of cultural syncretism whose cornerstone is a transgressive appropriation of the legacy of colonial culture: the Baroque.In the first chapter we have explained the characteristics of the border-form of the NCL and its origins due to the process of transculturation set up since the "discovery" of America. We affirm that the aesthetics of the NCL is decolonial because it attests to a play of perspectives between the borders of the modernity, the coloniality and the extra-modernity. We analyze the détournement decolonial of the NCL through two main axes: Latin American Baroque aesthetics and Italian Neorealism. The Latin-American Baroque, eclectic and sometimes anti-colonial, is reflected in the spirit of inclusion of the sensitive forms of different epistemologies. With regard to the influence of Neorealism, we propose the hypothesis that this cinema is also the heir of the aesthetic tradition of the Italian Baroque. From this idea we try to draw two lines of parallel and synchronic development of the history of the cinema, on the one hand the "Cinematographic Classicism" and on the other hand the "Cinematographic Baroque".Film Classicism is the heir of Classicism and its formal foundations are found in the classic Hollywood cinema that is the culmination of a coherent representation system. Baroque cinema, on the contrary, is heir to the historic Baroque, that is to say, of another "other" moderne, subterranean and subaltern aesthetic peculiar to southern Europe and the colonial world. Thus, the NCL proposes a "counter-hegemonic", "subaltern" and "subversive" vision of Latin America that opposes the official history of the subcontinent. This official history and cinema produced by the elites do not include in Amerindian and Afro-American cosmovisions. The NCL is produced mainly from the point of view of coloniality, but also from extra-modernity, towards modernity, the détournement of the classical representation system, which tries to turn into "derision", or to make "carnivalesque", hegemonic aesthetic forms. The decolonial détournement of the idea of "Latin America" leads through filmic forms, a cinema, and therefore an artistic work, which can contribute to the development of the decolonization imaginary.

This dissertation examines the transformative and decolonizing potential of Indigenous art-making and creativity to resist ongoing forms of settler colonialism and advance Indigenous nationhood and resurgence. Through a transdisciplinary investigation of contemporary Indigenous art, aesthetics, performance, music, hip-hop and remix culture, the project explores indigeneity’s opaque transits, trajectories, and fugitive forms. In resistance to the demands and limits imposed by settler colonial power upon Indigenous artists to perform indigeneity according to settler colonial logics, the project examines creative acts of affirmative refusal (or creative negation) that enact a resistant force against the masked dance of Empire by refusing forms of visibility and subjectivity that render indigeneity vulnerable to commodification and control. Through extensive interviews with Indigenous artists, musicians, and collectives working in a range of disciplinary backgrounds across Turtle Island, I stage an Indigenous intervention into multiple discursive forms of knowledge production and analysis, by cutting into and across the fields of Indigenous studies, contemporary art and aesthetics, performance studies, critical theory, political philosophy, sound studies, and hip-hop scholarship. The project seeks to elaborate decolonial political potentialities that are latent in the enfolded act of creation which, for Indigenous artists, both constellate new forms of community, while also affirming deep continuities within Indigenous practices of collective, creative expression. Against the colonial injunction to ‘represent’ indigeneity according to a determinate set of coordinates, I argue that Indigenous art-making and creativity function as the noise to colonialism’s signal: a force capable of disrupting colonial legibility and the repeated imposition of the normative order. Such force gains power through movement and action; it is in the act of turning away from the colonial state, and toward one another, that spaces of generative indeterminacy become possible. In the decolonial cypher, I claim, new forms of being elsewhere and otherwise have the potential to be realized and decolonized. / Graduate / 0357 / 0413 / 0615 / martij@uvic.ca