Sandra Monterroso: The Healing Aesthetics

Centered around the practice of Guatemalan/Mayan Q’eqchi’ artist Sandra Monterroso, this reader offers a considered approach to the power of healing through art

Through public performances, videos or installations using traditional dyeing and weaving techniques, Guatemalan artist Sandra Monterroso (born 1974) delves into her Mayan Q’eqchi’ ancestry to heal the spiritual and physical wounds inflicted by colonial violence. She also asks the broader question: how can artistic practice pave the way for healing?
This bilingual collection of essays and interviews from Monterroso, as well as a host of curators, activists and scholars across the Americas, unravels the core themes of her work including ancestral knowledge, Indigenous identities and feminisms, as well as the relationship between materiality and memory. At the same time, they point to the strategies Monterroso employs to forge connections through a self-reflective lens on her own history--keeping her past alive and, in doing so, mobilizing the present.