Kukuli Velarde, Resident Artist Lecture 2022

Kukuli Velarde gives an intimate lecture at Skowhegan talking about her relationship to Peru as a Peruvian-American artist. For Velarde, thinking about her work as creating documents has led her to also give importance to valuing the idea over the object. Throughout the lecture, Velarde dances to Peruvian music and shows images of her performances, paintings, and ceramics. Velarde reflects on the history of Peru as a continuum and how Peruvian culture is like a river; one can redirect Peru’s past but one can never direct its waters. Velarde explores the ways in which her work has continued to think about the consequences of European invasions and the intricate cultural strategies of resistance and negotiations, especially that of the original inhabitants of Peru. Velarde states the ways in which her aesthetic practices have been dismissed, erased, or belittled by the dangers of colonialism and how Velarde fights back against this through her refusal to engage in art historical, theoretical and literary movements that deny her existence as an artist. Velarde also talks about the role that motherhood has played in her work, and how the pain of separation from her daughter can be read as the pain of separation that happens within the political landscapes of the US-Mexico Border. Velarde ends her lecture by telling the participants how she has arrived at being okay with the impossibility of knowledge and dealing with the unknown.