Material Interests: The Last Resort. Exoticism, Extraction and Extinction
Wednesday 20th November 2024, 11:30am
Material Interests Lecture Series
Hear from leading artists and other world-changing practitioners across the fine arts and related industries in this flagship speaker series organised by Winchester School of Art's Department of Art and Media Technology.
The Last Resort. Exoticism, Extraction and Extinction with Dr Yaiza Hernández Velázquez
Venue: Lecture Theatre B, East Building, Winchester School of Art, Park Avenue, Winchester, Hampshire SO23 8DL / Online via Teams
Tourism emerged as an industry just as decolonisation was getting underway, bringing promises of rapid “development” for the host economies. However, for many who live under its hold, tourism has become just another extractive mechanism, one for which the construction of images of desire remains a central feature.
The visual cultures of tourism have remained strikingly consistent for over a century, perpetuating colonial imaginaries that speak of exoticism, exuberant wealth and sexual availability. Despite its incompatibility with the health of the planet and the almost complete suspension that the Covid-19 imposed on its operations, tourism has quickly recovered to continue apace as one of the world’s fastest-growing industries.
Despite persistent claims about “sustainable tourism” the industry voraciously consumes natural resources, common heritage, infrastructures and territory. Moreover, as Matilde Córdoba Azcárate has pointed out, tourism is “sticky”, hard to leave behind. With a terraforming capacity unmatched by any other industry, and an ability to imbricate itself into all aspects of life, it seems to foreclose the possibility of any alternative futures.
As protests emerge around the world asking tourists to stay away and traditional tourist destinations suffer the blunt force of climate change, there is a new urgency to rethinking our profound attachment to tourism. Dismantling the imaginaries that have come to stand for an elusive “good life” to be found on someone else’s land will only be a first step.
The Material Interests Lecture Series is co-sponsored by the Department of Art and Media Technology and Southampton Institute for Arts and Humanities
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| Location: | Winchester School of Art, Winchester, England |
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