The 2008 Syracuse Symposium continues its theme of "migration" with a joint
presentation by two Argentine artists who suffered exile and compulsory silence:
photographer Paula Luttringer and memoirist Margarita Drago. The free event is
Tuesday, Sept. 16, at 6 p.m. in Watson Auditorium of the Light Work/Community
Darkrooms (316 Waverly Ave.) on the Syracuse University campus.
Paid parking is available in the Marion Lot (intersection of Walnut and Waverly
avenues) and in the Booth Garage (Comstock Avenue, between Waverly Avenue and
Marshall Street). For more information, call Light Work at (315) 443-1300.
Born in La Plata, Argentina, Luttringer went into exile after being kidnapped as a
college student in 1977 and held for five months in a secret detention center. Upon
returning to Argentina in 1995, she turned to photography as a means of expressing
the intersection between her country's recent history and her own story. Also a
political prisoner, Drago is the author of numerous newspaper and journal articles,
and of the best-selling memoir "Memory Tracks: Fragments From Prison (1975-
1980)" (Editorial Campana, 2007). She also has represented her native country in
congresses of the United States, Mexico, Peru and France.
"The audience will have the rare opportunity to interact with two premier artists: one
working with the camera and the other with the pen," says Silvio Torres-Saillant,
event co-organizer and SU professor of Latino-Latin American Studies (LLAS).
During the program, Luttringer will show and discuss some of her photography and
Drago will read excerpts of "Memory Tracks" in Spanish, with English translations.
The evening continues with an audience discussion and readings of testimonies, by
LLAS students in English and Spanish, from women unlawfully imprisoned by the
Argentine military.
A 2001 Guggenheim Fellow, Luttringer is responsible for several award-winning
projects, including "El Matadero" ("The Slaughterhouse") and "El Lamento de los
Muros" ("The Wailing of the Walls"). Her photography is part of the permanent
collections of the National Museum of Fine Arts and Museum of Modern Art, both in
Buenos Aires; the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston; the George Eastman House in
Rochester; Portland Art Museum in Oregon; La Bibliotheque nationale de France in
Paris; and the Portuguese Photography Centre in Portugal.
In addition to speaking at SU, Luttringer will spend the month of September as a
Light Work Artist-in-Residence, working on a book about Argentine women. Since
2000, she has made numerous trips to Argentina to document women who, like her,
were illegally removed. Luttringer is one of more than 300 artists who, since 1976,
have participated in Light Work's acclaimed residency program.
A resident of the United States since 1980, Drago is professor of Spanish language
and literature and of bilingual education at York College of the City University New
York. She also is vice president of the Latino Artists Round Table, for which she
organizes lectures, presentations and conferences at universities and cultural centers.
According to United Nations reports, Argentina has a pernicious history of human
rights abuses, with four out of every 10 women suffering emotional, physical or
sexual abuse. During Argentina's 1976-83 military dictatorship, thousands of women
were forcibly incarcerated by the regime. "As victims of the intolerance and fear of
truth that dictatorships and false democracies typically perpetuate in the presence of
free-thinking women, Paula Luttringer and Margarita Drago will empower us with
their tale of how imprisonment fueled their art," says Torres-Saillant.
Presented by Syracuse Symposium, the evening is co-sponsored by Light Work and
LLAS. Syracuse Symposium is an annual, semester-long intellectual and artistic
festival, hosted for SU by The College of Arts and Sciences. More information is
available at http://syracusesymposium.org.
