Lisa Blackmore
Research Summary
I’m an interdisciplinary scholar and curator with a background in modern languages, Latin American cultural studies and environmental humanities, and a passionate commitment to collaborative projects and public engagement.
Before joining the University of Virginia, I held research and teaching posts in the UK, Switzerland, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela, and worked as a translator, audiovisual producer and independent journalist. At UVA, I’m also the Faculty Director of the Digital Humanities Center and a member of the Environmental Humanities Initiative.
My research centers on territorial transformations and cultural production in relation to long histories of colonialism, modernization, and industrialization in Spanish-speaking and Lusophone contexts. In my doctoral and postcdoctoral work, I delved into official and clandestine archives in Venezuela and the Dominican Republic to unearth how mid-twentieth century dictatorships leveraged modernist architecture and large-scale infrastructures as spectacles of progress designed to shore up authoritarian power.
I'm currently writing Hydrocommoning: Emergent Water Cultures in Art and Activism (under contract with Uni. Minnesota Press), which draws on my fieldwork, archival research and curatorial projects in Brazil, Colombia and Peru. I examine a corpus of water-stressed environments and analyze how artworks respond to them to argue that artistic practices of moving, listening, weaving and eating offer critical insights into the pressures of hydrocolonialism, industrialization and urbanization, while also creating compelling sensorial reconnections with common waters that move toward more care-full water cultures.
For me, part of being a first-generation professor means embracing a commitment to research that stretches past the walls of the university. Through curating, filmmaking, and editorial projects, I work to amplify engagement with artistic research, archival documents, and non-academic publics. In 2019, I founded entre—ríos, an international platform that creates arts-led collaborative spaces in Latin America and beyond to foster exchange of diverse knowledges around water challenges and cultures.
Education
PhD Latin American Studies, Birkbeck College, University of London
MA Latin American Cultural Studies, Birkbeck College, University of London
MA (Cantab) Modern and Medieval Languages, University of Cambridge
Website
Current Curatorial Work
entre—ríos — Confluence of projects that explores continuities between bodies of water, human bodies and territories, recognizing rivers as active subjects that produce aesthetic forms, transform landscapes and shape memory.
RIO BOGOTÁ — Collaborative curatorial project working to revive connections to the critically polluted Bogotá River, Colombia, through communal meals, documentary films, experimental pedagogies, publications, and artistic research.
Research-led Filmmaking
Después de Trujillo (2017) — Feature-length film and e-learning website on spatial and material remnants of Rafael Trujillo’s dictatorship in the Dominican Republic.
Podcasts
Metabolic Justice, with Sophie Chao. Plataforma de Humanidades Ambientales.
Conversación sobre el agua con entre—ríos. La Silla Vacía (en español)
Publications
Spectacular Modernity: Dictatorship, Space and Visuality in Venezuela. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017.
— Co-Edited Books & Journals
Hydrocommons Cultures: Art, Education and Practices of Care Across the Americas. LA ESCUELA__JOURNAL No.1, 2024. With A. Ponce de León.
Treading Lightly on the Earth: New Directions in Latin American Environmental Research and Practice. Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 31.1 (2022). With G. Heffes.
Sparking Conversations toward Eco-Political Art. MAVAE_ Cuadernos de Música, Artes Visuales y Artes Escénicas 17.2 (2022). With A.M. Lozano
Liquid Ecologies in Latin American and Caribbean Art. New York: Routledge, 2020. With L. Gómez
Natura: Environmental Aesthetics After Landscape. Zurich: Diaphanes, 2018. With J. Andermann & D. Carrillo
Downward Spiral: El Helicoide’s Descent from Mall to Prison. New York: Urban Research, 2018. With C. Olalquiaga
The Politics of Culture in the Chávez Era Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2018. With R. Jarman & P. Plaza.
— entre—ríos Publications
Cómo volver al río. Bogotá: entre—ríos, 2025. With L. Giraldo-Martínez, A. Sarria.
Hydrocommons Map / Mapa de Hidrocomunes. entre—ríos, 2024. With A. Ponce de León & T. Mulet.
Cómo cuidar un río. Bogotá: entre—ríos, 2023. With L. Giraldo-Martínez, D. Piñeros-García, J. Steiner, C. Alfonso, C. Consuegra.
Cuerpos permeables: páramos, arte y ciencia en diálogo. Bogotá: Instituto de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt, 2021. With E. De Valdenebro.
entre—ríos: del páramo a la represa (entre—ríos: From the Highlands to the Dam). Colchester: University of Essex, 2021. With M.F. Domínguez.
— Recent Articles & Book Chapters (selection)
Art for the Hydrocommons: Rethinking Human-Water Relations in Latin America. Environmental Humanities 17.1 (2025): 23–44.
Learning with Water: Dialogue with Astrida Neimanis. Hydrocommons Cultures: Art, Pedagogy and Care Practices Across the Americas. LA ESCUELA__JOURNAL No. 1 (2024): 34–58.
“We have enough walls, now we have to build bridges.” Dialogue with Carolina Caycedo . Hydrocommons Cultures: Art, Pedagogy and Care Practices Across the Americas. LA ESCUELA__JOURNAL No. 1 (2024): 141–163.
How to Eat a Polluted River? Curatorial Practice, Metabolic Literacies and Cultures of Care. In Eco-Operations. Zurich: Diaphanes, 2024.
Imagining Postextractivist Ongoingness. In Momentum: Art and Ecology in Contemporary Latin America, 303–319. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2024.
Water. In Handbook of Latin American Environmental Aesthetics, 421–440. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2023.
Being River: Ambient Poetics and Somatic Experiences of More-than-Human Flows. In The Routledge Companion to Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Latin American Literary and Cultural Forms, 249–261. New York: Routledge, 2022.
Cultivating Ongoingness through Site-Specific Arts Research and Public Engagement. Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 31.1 (2022): 159–176.
Latin American Environmental Research and Practice. Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 31.1 (2022): 105–114. With G. Heffes.
Hubristic Hydraulics: Water, Dictatorship and Urban Modernity in the Dominican Republic. Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture 1.2 (2020): 115–125.
Counterflows: Hydraulic Order and Residual Ecologies in Caribbean Fantasy Landscapes. In Pushing Past the Human in Latin American Cinema, 181–204. New York: SUNY, 2021.
Turbulent River Times: Art and Hydropower in South America’s Extractive Zones. In Liquid Ecologies in Latin American and Caribbean Art, 12–34. New York: Routledge, 2020.
When Walls Become Rivers: Carolina Caycedo’s Serpent River Book. Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry 49.1 (2020): 91–100.
Colonizing Flow: The Aesthetics of Hydropower and Post-Kinetic Assemblages in the Orinoco. In Natura: Environmental Aesthetics After Landscape, 171–198. Zurich: Diaphanes, 2018.