'A Museum for Me'
Workshop ‘A Museum for Me’ introduces the Colombian conflict and ongoing social protests and human rights abuses in Colombia, and how/why museum spaces are important for representation.
Attendees will have the opportunity to create and curate their own miniature museum reflecting their identity, an activity developed as part of Latin American Studies at Westminster (LASAW) member research. The museums will be displayed for the remainder of the first semester in the campus’ foyer to prolong the event’s visibility.
The event will be introduced by a member of the group Mujer Diáspora, an NGO for Colombian women living in London, who have previously undertaken the same workshop.
This activity demonstrates the interdisciplinarity of languages and underlines how Latin America is a significant source of social change while showcasing how research projects can work between academics and languages stakeholders in the wider London-based diasporic community.
Latin American Week
The Latin American Studies at Westminster (LASAW) research group is putting on a series of interactive events at the University of Westminster at its inaugural Latin American Week which will bring together scholars, students, the Latin American diaspora, and wider public and engage them with Latin American culture.
The three events happen in week 6 (Student Engagement Week) which falls on the date of Mexican festival Day of the Dead, around which one of the events is based. All the events will visibilise Latin American Studies and serve as a focal point for these in London, showing how learning a language is a gateway to new knowledge found in unexpected places. The activities include hands-on activities such as mini-museum curation, altar-building for the Day of the Dead, and film screening of La Llorona with a Q&A to open discussions on human rights, the visibility of minority groups, and the commercialisation of Latin American traditions.
Detailed description of events
The proposed event series seeks to bring contemporary Latin American issues to a wide audience through its interactive and interdisciplinary nature. Inclusive and accessible sessions will encourage extra-curricular engagement with undergraduate Hispanic Studies topics and engage with secondary education language learners: given our close involvement with the Routes into Languages programme we will invite our school partners to the events.
These activities will also be of particular interest to languages stakeholders and community groups in London, such as Mujer Diáspora and Casa Latinoamericana, as well as the general public. The events offered play to the strengths of the dynamic research interests of LASAW and the themes will be presented as united by the Spanish language but accessible to all.
