Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

6-2025

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Art History

Advisor

Anna Indych-López

Committee Members

Katherine Manthorne

Claire Bishop

Gabriela Germaná

Subject Categories

Modern Art and Architecture | Other History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology

Keywords

Peruvian art, contemporary art, Indigenous art, Black dance, folk art

Abstract

“Crafting Sovereignty” examines how Quechua, Black, and Huitoto artists in Peru during the 1970s and 1980s drew on embodied forms of family and communal memory—expressed through practices such as dance and weaving—to challenge dominant discourses that positioned their practice as the “Other” of modern art. White and mestizo intellectuals such as José Sabogal and José María Arguedas had shaped modern art narratives in previous decades, reinforcing racist biases that cast Indigenous and Black arts and practitioners as incompatible with modernity. Rejecting these externally imposed frameworks, artists such as Santiago Rojas, Victoria Santa Cruz, Nilda Callañaupa, Janao, and Komulla Jitó transformed public spaces—craft fairs, theater stages, and tourist workshops—into sites of artistic innovation and epistemological resistance. In doing so, they vindicated their racial subjectivities in a country that had historically marginalized them. By centering the artistic production of Indigenous and Black artists against dominant nationalist narratives, this dissertation argues that the 1970s and 1980s marked a pivotal moment when these artists reclaimed sovereignty over their racial and cultural heritage. Their engagement with ancestral memory reinforced concrete kinship ties, offering non-essentialist alternatives to monolithic interpretations of cultural heritage and artistic modernity in Latin America and beyond.

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