Conversation with Daniel Alarcón and Carlos Motta

Admission required (free with membership)

In conjunction with Fernando Botero: The Abu Ghraib Series, on view at the Berkeley Museum and Pacific Film Archive September 23, 2009–February 7, 2010.

The social consequences of global and internal imbalances of power have long influenced the creative work of many Latin American artists and writers. How do contemporary practitioners relate to legacies of repression, resistance, and protest, and how do they consider social and political alternatives for the future in their work? Peruvian-born writer Daniel Alarcón and Colombian-born artist Carlos Motta will discuss their recent and current projects with these questions in mind.

Daniel Alarcón is not only the fall 2009 writer in residence in the MFA Program in Writing but also the top-prize winner of the first International Literature Award—Haus der Kulturen der Welt 2009 for his novel Lost City Radio (translated by Friederike Meltendorf). The award is issued in Berlin by Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House of the Cultures of the World) and the private organization Stiftung Elementarteilchen. The award aims to heighten people's awareness of outstanding and extraordinary new works of international literature. (The same novel earned the author the 2008 Literary Award for Fiction from PEN USA.) Alarcón also was a 2006 PEN/Hemingway Award Finalist for his collection War by Candlelight. He is associate editor of Etiqueta Negra, a magazine published in Lima, Peru, and has been a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley’s Center for Latin American Studies. He is currently working on his first graphic novel.

Carlos Motta uses strategies from documentary film, journalism, and sociology to consider the effects of specific political events in photography, video, and installation projects. Recent works include The Immigrant Files: Democracy Is Not Dead, It Just Smells Funny and La Buena Vida (The Good Life). Motta was a 2008 Guggenheim Fellow and some of his current work is included in the Lyon Biennale.

[image: Fernando Botero: Abu Ghraib 68, 2005;
oil on canvas; 15 3⁄8 × 17 ¾ in.; gift of the artist.
Photo: Sibila Savage]