Aesthetics of Poverty

Challenging the Fictitious Separation Between Indigeneity and Modernity

Abstract

Indigeneity is usually framed as modernity’s other. It is a narrative that confines Indigenous peoples to a place of deprived marginality or exotic romanticism. This perception is especially prevalent in mainstream visual representation of Indigenous people. In this photographic series, I seek to challenge the dichotomy between tradition and modernity by overlapping seemingly disparate elements such as traditional textiles and modern architecture. I started this exploration by mimicking early 19^th century ethnological photography and current neoliberal multiculturalist imagery. In both cases, I use my own body, as an Indigenous woman of Aymara origin, to explore the mechanisms through which historical heritage operates simultaneously as emancipatory resistance and neo-colonial oppression.