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Art & Art History ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Fall 11-13-2018 Arts of Resistance: Ecologic History and Contemporary Interventions in the Valley of Mexico Chloë L. Courtney University of New Mexico
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Recommended Citation Courtney, Chloë L.. "Arts of Resistance: Ecologic History and Contemporary Interventions in the Valley of Mexico." (2018). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/arth_etds/81
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Chloë Courtney Candidate
Department of Art and Art History Department
This thesis is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication:
Approved by the Thesis Committee:
Kency Cornejo, Chairperson
Kirsten Buick
Ray Hernandez-Durán
Szu-Han Ho
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ARTS OF RESISTANCE: ECOLOGIC HISTORY AND CONTEMPORARY INTERVENTIONS IN THE VALLEY OF MEXICO
by
CHLOË COURTNEY
B.A., ART HISTORY, AUBURN UNIVERSITY, 2015
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Arts Art History
The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico
December 2018
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DEDICATION
This work is dedicated to my parents, Louwane and Mark, who taught me to persevere.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I gratefully acknowledge Kency Cornejo, my advisor and thesis chair, for her continual encouragement and for sharing her radical understanding of what art history can be and do. Her insights will continue to guide my thinking.
I also extend my gratitude to my committee members, Kirsten Buick, Ray
Hernandez-Durán, and Szu-Han Ho, for their guidance pertaining to this research and their support of my professional development. I wish to thank Subhankar Banerjee for his vision, without which this research may not have developed. Thanks are due, as well, to the Center for Southwest Research, the Latin American and Iberian Institute, the
University of New Mexico Office of Graduate Studies, the Department of Art and Art
History, the College of Fine Arts, and the SOMA Summer program for the funding and opportunities that have supported my studies and research over the past three years.
I am grateful for the assistance of Esperanza Rocha at the Center for
Documentation at Ex-Teresa Arte Actual.
Thank you to Carlos Huitzil, Ehecatl Morales, Maria Thereza Alves, Genaro
Amaro Altamirano and the Museo Comunitario del Valle de Xico, for welcoming my interest, for the many conversations and communications, and most importantly, for the work that you do.
To Katelyn Bladel, Hayley Pedrick, Rachel Donovan and Jana Gottschalk, thank you for the nourishing conversations and companionship on this journey.
Finally, to Lara Goldmann, thank you for your collaboration and your spirit, which have transformed my understanding in so many ways. v
ARTS OF RESISTANCE: ECOLOGIC HISTORY AND CONTEMPORARY INTERVENTIONS IN THE VALLEY OF MEXICO
by
Chloë Courtney
B.A., Art History, Auburn University, 2015
ABSTRACT
This thesis analyzes two contemporary artworks concerning Mexico City’s complex socio-ecologic history: the installation The Return of a Lake (2012), by Maria
Thereza Alves, and the performance Plan Acalote (2015) by the collective Plan Acalli