Watch a Social Documentary at URCAD!

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:18:30 -0400

Reclamation and Resistance: Audiovisual Tools in Bolivia

Stefanie M. Mavronis

Jason Loviglio, Associate Professor, Department of Media and Communication Studies

AC IV Wing A 110 | 3:10 PM

The first years of the 21st century have been characterized by globalization, a shrinking of the world through neoliberal economic policies and shared networks of information. In the face of the global export of Western values and the legacy of hundreds of years of colonization, active and creative resistance movements have grown. Developing nations like Bolivia have enjoyed a thriving tradition of community media, and a new consciousness has emerged to organize this popular energy around the process of decolonization. Art and media technologies comprise one set of tools that have been used in Bolivia, a country with a majority indigenous population, in the struggle for freedom and independence from its forced historical legacy. This documentary film tells three stories of this resistance. Starting with the history of indigenous filmmaking, Aymara filmmaker Patricio Luna explains the importance of reclaiming indigenous identity. Then, sociologist Silvia Rivera and her art collective demonstrate the physical realization of decolonization theory through the construction of a community center in La Paz, Bolivia’s capital. Finally, a group of young people in nearby El Alto discusses its innovative community television project that seeks to create content that is meaningful and reflective for their own community.