Wednesday, April 13, 2022, 12:30-2pm EDT
KJCC Auditorium, 53 Washington Square South
Open to NYU faculty, staff and students
Reception to follow

Panelists:
Rubén Bermúdez (visual artist)
Lucía Asué Mbomío Rubio (journalist and writer)
Moderator: Lissette Acosta Corniel (Assistant Professor, BMCC)

This roundtable discussion about the representation of Afro-descendents in Spain comes at a critical moment in discussions about race, identity, and creative expression among artists, writers, performers, and advocates in Spain who are building new, inclusive spaces for the discussion of anti-racist pedagogy across different institutional contexts, within and outside of Spain. In this generational shift within Spain, especially among Spanish-born Afro- and Asian-descendents, members of collectives like Conciencia-Afro are bridging the conversations happening in Spain into relation with those happening world-wide, especially Black Lives Matter. The panelists will focus on the visual, literary, and performative gestures being made by artists and writers to connect their work as advocates and witnesses to racism in Spain with their creative and performative strategies as creatives, whose work connects with the different, but intersecting, worlds of the visual arts and literature.

Bios:

Rubén H. Bermudéz is a visual artist. He is the author of Y tú, ¿por qué eres negro? (2017) and the director of the film A todos nos gusta el plátano (2021). His work has been exhibited in cultural spaces like the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and Rencontres de Bamako. Co-founder of Conciencia Afro collective.

Lucía Asué Mbomío Rubio is a journalist. She has worked as a TV reporter since 2005 for TVE, Antena 3, Telemadrid, Movistar TV and as a contributor to the newspaper El País, where she was a columnist for two years. She is the author of Las que se atrevieron (2017) and Hija del camino (2019), which is being developed by Netflix into a series. In 2020 she won the Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos de España (APDHE)’s Communication and Human Rights Prize.

Lissette Acosta Corniel is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Race and Ethnic Studies at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY, in New York City where she teaches Dominican History and the History of Latinos in the U.S. She is currently working on a book manuscript about gender-based violence, femicide, and women’s autonomy in colonial Santo Domingo.

Co-sponsored by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, with support from the Center for the Humanities and the Center for Africa and the African Diaspora at NYU. In collaboration with NYU Madrid, the Fundación Rey Juan Carlos, and Conciencia-Afro (Madrid).