Julia Pastrana’s Long Journey Home

Mexican artist Laura Anderson Barbata will discuss her decade-long journey to repatriate the remains of Julia Pastrana (1834–1860) to Mexico. Born in Sinaloa, Pastrana was a gifted singer and dancer who had an unusually pronounced jaw and thick hair throughout her face and body. During her lifetime, her husband-manager paraded her throughout Europe and the United States, and her embalmed body continued to be exhibited in Europe for more than a century after her death. In 2013 Anderson Barbata succeeded in having Pastrana’s body repatriated to Mexico. In her presentation, the artist will discuss her incentive to bring back Pastrana’s body to her homeland, issues related to race and science, the fascination and exploitation of socalled “others,” indigenous rights, memory, and the importance of cultural sensitivity.

Born in Mexico City, Laura Anderson Barbata is a transdisciplinary artist currently based in Brooklyn and Mexico City. Since 1992 she has worked primarily in the social realm, and has initiated projects in the Venezuelan Amazon, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Norway, and the United States. Barbata is a recipient of the Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporaneo and Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center artist in residence for Latin American artists 2019; the Anonymous Was a Woman 2016 Award; Defense of Human Rights Award 2017, Instituto de Administración Pública de Tabasco, México; an Honorary Fellow of LACIS (the Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies Program), University of Wisconsin, Madison; and a Fellow of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary TBA21 The Current. Miembro del Sistema Nacional de Creadores, México (2014–17) and professor at the Escuela Nacional de Escultura, Pintura y Grabado La Esmeralda of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes from 2010 until 2015.