Ángeles Donoso Macaya

Historically, feminist movements and feminist theory have given significant weight to the consideration of visuality in a broad sense—historical invisibility of “women,” political underrepresentation, overrepresentation of white women in media, and so on. Yet, what is rendered (in)visible when “women” are rescued from/in the archive? What does the category “women” name and erase? Is it possible to articulate forms of feminist criticism that do not attend to the politics of identity and representation, to develop methodologies that do not reinforce patriarchal paradigms and discursive tropes? “The Expanding Photographic Archive of Feminist Movements in Chile” explores these questions by critically considering feminist counter-visualities that different feminist and women-led movements have produced in periods of political upheaval across the twentieth century in Chile. This interdisciplinary project interconnects the study of archival documentary images – photographs and film – with visual studies, feminist history and historiography, photography theory, art theory, and trans feminist theory.