From the Andes to Cuba and Back
Oct 23, 2025
From: 07:00 PM to 08:00 PM
A scholarly talk at the Freedom Tower explores how art from the Andes reflects both cultural heritage and colonial influence in shaping visual languages of identity.
From the Andes to Cuba and Back: Visual Cultures of Resistance takes place Thursday, October 23, part of MOAD’s Kislak Talks series. Art historian Ananda Cohen-Aponte will draw on paintings and textiles from the Kislak Collection to examine intersections of colonialism, migration and resistance in Andean visual culture. Her lecture highlights how these works embody social, political and spiritual narratives that continue to resonate across the Americas.
Ananda Cohen-Aponte is an Associate Professor of History of Art at Cornell University and a 2024–25 Getty Fellow. She is the author of Heaven, Hell, and Everything in Between: Murals of the Colonial Andes and Reimagining Lost Visual Archives of Black and Indigenous Resistance, with research focused on racial formation, cross-cultural exchange and the legacies of colonialism in Latinx art.
The event celebrates the newly installed Kislak Center exhibition Languages of Migration. Admission is free with registration, and refreshments will be served. Free parking is available at the MDC garage at 500 NE Second Avenue.
Image: Abraham Ortelius, Florida [with] Guastecan [with] Peruviae Avriferae Regionis Typus, 1589. Engraving. Jay I. Kislak Collection of the Early Americas, Exploration and Navigation, Miami Dade College.