New Online Exhibit: The Caribbean at an Arm’s Length

New online exhibit: The Caribbean at an Arm’s Length

https://exhibits.tulane.edu/exhibit/caribbean

Curated by Maria Pautassi Restrepo (Art History MA ‘2021, Newcomb Art Department), The Caribbean at an Arm’s Length explores the "stereoscopic images of Puerto Rico produced and distributed between 1900-1910 by the American company Underwood & Underwood are notable visual documents on the aftermath of Spanish American war and discourses of vision and visuality of the nascent American empire." 

"After looking at this virtual exhibition and interactive map, viewers will understand how the Underwood’s conveyed an imaginary sense of presence and participation in the process of colonizing Puerto Rico with the help of maps, captions, and stereographic images. The main purpose of this exhibition is to show how technology shapes the way we look at racialized bodies and landscapes, and to promote reflection on the constructed nature of looking. These questions are particularly crucial today because images of Puerto Rican people and landscapes produced in the first years of the American occupation of the island not only anticipate iconographies of the Caribbean disseminated in tourism and fruit industry advertisements of the twentieth century, but also remain fixed as organizing principles for a colonial archive of the island."