Dalida María Benfield is a media artist, researcher, and writer. In Benfield's research-based artistic and collective practices, she produces video, installation, archives, artists' books, workshops, and other pedagogical and communicative actions, across online and offline platforms. She is currently faculty in the

Vermont College of Fine Arts Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA) is a private graduate-level college affiliated with California Institute of the Arts. It offers Master's degrees in a low-residency format. Its faculty includes Pulitzer Prize finalists, National Book Award wi ...

MFA in Visual Arts program, and was a Research Fellow and Faculty Associate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

(2011–2015).

Education

Benfield holds a Ph.D. (2011) from the University of California-Berkeley in Ethnic Studies with Designated Emphasis in Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies, and an MFA (1989) from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Work

Dalida María Benfield's research engages questions of gender and the geo-politics of knowledge in the work of contemporary digital

media Media may refer to: Communication * Means of communication, tools and channels used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Interactive media, media that is inter ...

artists and activists. Built from

decolonial Decoloniality () is a school of thought that aims to delink from Eurocentric knowledge hierarchies and ways of being in the world in order to enable other forms of existence on Earth. It critiques the perceived universality of Western knowl ...

theory, transnational

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

methodology, and the sociology of global flows of information, her research and practice have resulted in the concept of "decolonial media aesthetics." Her research and writing projects have specifically taken up critical engagements with

gender Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...

, race, technology, and discourses of development; artists' and activists' iteration of technology as social and epistemic interventions; and open knowledge and digital humanities, including the development of new online platforms for art, feminist research, and video archives. Her recent work has addressed the work of individual artists, such as Michelle Dizon, Fabiano Kueva, Enrique Castro Ríos,

Cao Fei Cao Fei ( zh, 曹斐, ; born 1978) is a Chinese multimedia artist born in Guangzhou. Her work, which includes video, performance, and digital media, examines the daily life of Chinese citizens born after the Cultural Revolution. Her work explores ...

, and artists' collectives, including the Raqs Media Collective; as well as activist media during the global

Occupy movement The Occupy movement was an international populist Social movement, socio-political movement that expressed opposition to Social equality, social and economic inequality and to the perceived lack of real democracy around the world. It aimed primar ...

, the Egyptian revolution, and the global environmental and

water rights Water right in water law is the right of a user to use water from a water source, e.g., a river, stream, pond or source of groundwater. In areas with plentiful water and few users, such systems are generally not complicated or contentious. In o ...

movements. A recent work of Benfield's, losarchivosdelcuerpo ody files'' uses a

aesthetics and poetics of re-embodiment of knowledge and

knowledge sharing Knowledge sharing is an activity through which knowledge (namely, information, skills, or expertise) is exchanged among people, friends, peers, families, communities (for example, Wikipedia), or within or between organizations. It bridges the ind ...

in the mediated shadows of colonialisms. The

collective A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest or work together to achieve a common objective. Collectives can differ from cooperatives in that they are not necessarily focused upon an e ...

project, with work contributed by international artists and authors, exhibited most recently at Huret & Spector Gallery,

Emerson College Emerson College is a private college in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It also maintains campuses in Los Angeles and Well, Limburg, Netherlands (Kasteel Well). Founded in 1880 by Charles Wesley Emerson as a "school of Public Speaking, o ...

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

(April 2015); and SALASAB, Bogotá,

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

(October 2015), co-designed with the artist Robert Ochshorn (US/Germany) takes the form of an open access archive of art and writing, an installation of video, photographs, and drawings, as well as a video screening series, workshops, and print publications. The

Videos of lectures/conversations

* "''CoLLEctive NoW: Artists on the Collective Present''." Invited speaker and convener of roundtable, with Robert Sember (Ultra-red), Beatriz Santiago-Muñoz (Beta-local), Salome Chasnoff (Beyond Media), Sasha Sumner (Hungry March Band), and Kim Hou (M.E.I. Collectif). The Feminist Art Project day of panels during the College Art Association Conference. Museum of Art and Design, NY, NY. February 2015. * "''Digital Natives."'' In Video Vortex 9 Hybrid Video Reader. The Institute of Network Cultures,

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

. 2014. * “''Unexpected Development: Decolonial Media Aesthetics and Women’s ICT4D Video''." Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. 2012. * “''El Aparato (De)Colonial: cambiar la ruta del Canal de Panamá."'' DeColonial Aesthetics Conference, Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas and Museo de Arte Moderno-MAMBO, Bogotá, Colombia. 2010.

Interviews

* Grznic, M., Smid, A., and Simcic, Z. ''Decoloniality (Images of Struggle)''. Interview in film, 2011. * Ree, M. "''producing a eminist ecolonial ultipleworld through a frame'': Dalida Maria Benfield." In HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaborative) Forum, December 6, 2011.

Publications

* Cornejo, K. "The Question of Central American-Americans in Latino Art and Pedagogy." In Aztlan Journal, 2015. * Chavez, B. "Decolonial Aesthesis: Arte Nuevo InteractivA and A New Generation of Decolonial Thinkers, Makers and Doers." In E-Misférica 11.1 El Gesto Decolonial, 2014. * Rojas-Sotelo, M. "Decolonial Aesthesis at the 11th Havana Biennial." In Social Text/Periscope, July 2013. * Lasch, P. Grand Gestures and (Im)modest Proposals. OXC Press, 2013. * List, C. Chicano Images: Refiguring Ethnicity in Mainstream Film. New York and London: Routledge, 2013 (republished 2013/2016). * Peterson, M.A. “Book Review: Making Our Media...” In MedieKultur, 52, 185–188, 2012. * Gomez, P., and Mignolo, W. “Estéticas Decoloniales: Sentir, Pensar, Hacer en Abya Yala y La Gran Comarca.” In Esteticas Decoloniales. Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas. Bogotá, Colombia, 2011.

References

External links

* Apparatuses, Globalities, Assemblages : Third Cinema, Now, dissertation by Dalida María Benfield {{DEFAULTSORT:Benfield, Dalida Maria Panamanian artists Panamanian women artists Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) Living people Vermont College of Fine Arts faculty Tisch School of the Arts alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni Harvard University alumni School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni Berkman Fellows Decolonial artists