Making Up for Lost Time

So...it's been a while since I've posted. But that doesn't mean I haven't been researching and planning, "finding" that ever-elusive baroque! Time has really slipped away from me, and now it's almost the end of the semester and I have a lot of catching up to do on this blog.

Where to begin?

A few nights ago, I gave a presentation during Edgar's Artist Talk about Garcilaso de la Vega, who has been my research topic since the beginning of the semester. I chose de la Vega because I have a personal connection to him; this past summer while living in Cusco, I visited his house, which now functions as a museum, and walked past a statue of him in Wanchaq nearly every day on my way to school. I find de la Vega's character very intriguing in relation to the baroque and neo-baroque. As a mestizo--half Spanish, half indigenous, earning him the nickname of "El Inca"--de la Vega simultaneously represented "Otherness" while participating in hegemonic, colonial discourse. This duality is perhaps best represented in his work La Florida del Inca, which recounts Hernando de Soto's journey through the Floridian peninsula. As I mentioned in my speech, de la Vega does not shy away from depicting the harsh realities of conquest and colonialism, but embraces these consequences, for they help make evident "the ability and capacity for action of the indigenous populations, whether they are from La Florida or the Andes" (Raquel Chang-Rodríguez, Beyond Books and Borders: Garcilaso de la Vega and La Florida del Inca). He subverts our expectations in his presentation of the "victors" and the "vanquished," which is, in and of itself, very baroque.

On the way out of de la Vega's house in Cusco, there is a large quote from Mario Vargas Llosa, another famous Peruvian writer, painted on the wall. The English translation was a bit faulty and the paint was peeling in places, but its sentiment was still quite beautiful:

   Museums are as necessary for countries as are schools and hospitals. They also heal, not bodies, but minds of darkness that hold ignorance, prejudice, superstition, and all the defects that isolate human beings from one another, and make them fester and push them to kill one another. Museums sharpen sensibility, stimulate the imagination, refine one’s sentiments, and wake up in people the critical and self-critical spirit. Progress does not only mean many schools, hospitals, and roads. Also, and maybe above all, progress is found in that wisdom that makes us capable of differentiating the ugly from the beautiful, the intelligent from the stupid, the good from the bad, and the tolerable from the intolerable…that which we call culture.

When thinking about this quote in relation to de la Vega's legacy and our class in general, I realized just how important our research and show has been and will be. We couldn't be "finding the baroque" at a better time. Right now, with the city's 450th celebrations upon us, words like "discovery" and "glory" are being thrown around; but they are but buzz words to pique tourists' interest. In many ways, the rich history of St. Augustine has been whitewashed for mass consumption. The information that makes its way into the glossy pamphlets in hotel lobbies--that's what we know, because that's what is marketed. By reappropriating figures like Maria de la Leche and the term "pardo," and reintroducing forgotten voices like de la Vega's, perhaps we can enrich and enliven the conversation during this great moment of celebration for our city.
 

With my study abroad group and a traditional woman in the courtyard of de la Vega's house