The Invisible Trace · The Invisible Trace. Writings by Women Artists of the Avant-Garde in 20th-Century Latin America

The Invisible Trace: Writings by Women Artists of the Avant-Garde in 20th-Century Latin America analyzes the long-standing neglect and undervaluation of women artists within the dominant art historical canon through a counter-archival approach informed by a Latin American perspective. By focusing on the overlooked writings of Maria Martins (Brazil/United States), Suzanne Roussi Césaire (Martinique/France), and Leonora Carrington (United Kingdom/Mexico), this project aims to challenge entrenched hierarchies of visibility and advance reparative memory politics in the arts. It endeavors to recover, reassess and study these artists’ dispersed written traces, which transcend conventional textual and disciplinary boundaries, bridging the gap between visual arts archives and literary and textual ones. Committed to knowledge transfer and societal engagement, the project not only enhances our understanding of the contributions of migrant, Latin American, and Black women to 20th-century avant-garde movements and networks but also develops an innovative archival methodology that is applicable across disciplines and beneficial to diverse marginalized subjects and collectives.