Defense Date
2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts
Department
Photography and Film
First Advisor
Tesora Molina Garcia
Second Advisor
Mark Boulos
Third Advisor
Sonali Gulati
Fourth Advisor
Liz Canfield
Abstract
In Caliban and the Witch, Silvia Federici states, “The body has been for capitalism what the colony has been for imperialism: the ground of accumulation.” Taken from my life experiences of forced migration due to state violence during childhood and state violence during my adulthood that resulted in the partial loss of my eyesight, this work explores how vision can be reclaimed as a collective act through Mayan cosmology, material transformation, spiritual ceremony, and ancestrality. I was born in 1988 in El Salvador, during the country’s Civil War that was primarily funded by the United States. It ultimately forced my mother to migrate to the United States. Consequently, I was raised by my grandparents and did not reunite my mom until I was seven years old. My work is grounded in the writings of Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Silvia Federici, and shared knowledge from Mayan elders. This thesis is composed of a series of parts that includes an art installation, an experimental short film, a copper pinhole camera, and photographic components, and organic matter. This project is approached through abolitionist and decolonial lenses. Influenced by Mayan cosmology, copper, a metal tied to both ceremony and extraction, undergoes a material transformation to serve as an ancestral, living, medium for healing.
Rights
© The Author
Is Part Of
VCU University Archives
Is Part Of
VCU Theses and Dissertations
Date of Submission
5-7-2026