Interview with Liliana Angulo, conducted by Mila Aponte-González, during the 7th Encuentro of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, held in August of 2009 in Bogotá, Colombia under the title Staging Citizenship: Cultural Rights in the Americas. In this interview, Liliana Angulo talks about her take on how her particular performance-related work makes a political intervention in the public sphere. This interview complements her video installation Négritude, showcased in this 10-day event, which brought together activism, scholarship, and art around the themes of legacies, memories, struggles, and frontiers of citizenship.

Biography

Visual artist Liliana Angulo graduated from the National University in Bogotá, Colombia with a specialization in sculpture. In her work with different media she explores racial identity and Afro-Colombian culture, among other themes. In addition to national expositions in Colombia such as “International Encounter MDE07—Contemporary Artistic Practices,” “Journey Without a Map: Afro Representations in Contemporary Colombian Art,” and “Cohabitate: IX Biennial of the Museum of Modern Art of Bogotá,” she has participated in international exhibitions in the United States, Mexico, and France. Her works form part of the collection of the Bank of the Republic in Colombia and various private collections. In 2008 she was guest artist at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris (CNRS). The center’s University Journal of Social Sciences “Cahiers du Genre” discusses her work in the issue of January 2008, dedicated to the theme “Gender, Feminism, and the Value of Art,” and features one of her photographs on the cover. In the United States, she has presented her work in the program “Eight Photographers” at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, as well as the Center for African Studies and the Latin American and Latino Studies program of the University of Pennsylvania. She has also given lectures at Kansas State University and Emerson College School of the Arts in Boston. In July 2008 she was connected with the program “Living work,” developed by the Área Cultural of the Bank of the Republic of Colombia, Quibdo-Chocó branch, in which artists carry out collective projects with diverse communities. She has also contributed to designing policies related to artistic practices in social and academic contexts.