Bard College Berlin News
Transforming the past through art: Haley Stewart joins BCB guest faculty teaching ‘Beyond Crisis: South American Memory Politics and Art’
Stewart is looking forward to teaching South American art within the liberal arts environment of Bard College Berlin. As a graduate of a liberal arts college herself, she says, “I continue to think there’s something unique about the liberal arts’ ideal of intellectual exploration. I’m excited to introduce students to the cultural literacies that are necessary for studying South American art, while also helping them to develop their independent critical thinking skills.”
Stewart is from Portland, Oregon, and first began studying Spanish at the age of four in a language immersion school. “Language has been the doorway to my interest in South American art and literature,” she says. What continues to sustain her passion for the region, beyond interest in particular artists and writers, is how Latin American culture can “offer lessons in the difficult art of living together, or how to convivir, as they say in Spanish.”
“I’ve chosen artists whose work conscientiously engages with the topic of historical memory, a topic that has been a robust source of dialogue in Southern Cone and Andean countries following more recent experiences of dictatorship violence and more long-standing experiences of colonial violence,” Stewart explains. She adds, “I work on, and try to teach, artists whose work I admire, and who have helped me experience the world differently.”
Stewart’s course specifically looks at memory politics and crisis within South American art. She says, “Part of what I find inspiring about the artists I study is how they are both critical and optimistic at the same time. They don’t deny the violence or failures of the past, but they believe in the ability to transform it into something better for the future.”
This semester, she hopes her students will become acquainted with the principles that shape discussions of Latin American art and culture, as well as with the frameworks for discussing historical memory in these regions. In addition, she hopes students “continue developing their abilities to discuss art in sensitive ways, and to think about what the value of art and aesthetics might be.”
Students of any degree program may elect to take art history courses. Students interested in studying the arts at Bard College Berlin more extensively may enroll in the BA in Artistic Practice and Society or the Art and Aesthetics Concentration.
Post Date: 09-30-2024