Re-Membering Identity in Nepantla: María Berrío’s use of collage, memory, and imagination

Our current diverse and globalized times call for a reexamination of the conventional art historical methods that do not accurately address the interconnectedness that permeates our society as a result of migration. This research employs a collage methodology to address the work of Colombian-born and Brooklyn-based artist, María Berrío, specifically looking into her Aluna (2017) artwork. Migration is such a complex process that attempting to understand it with simplified methodologies directly attempts against the nature of migration. As such, this research departs from the idea that a collage methodology functions as a decolonizing method that reverts the linearity, over-simplification, and meta-narrativizing that the art history canon has historically encouraged. In this case, this research brings in different discourses and theories in the areas of feminist migration studies, the psychology of migration, and the implications of art-making within migration, that will enable multiple ideas, thoughts, and symbols presented in Aluna to thrive simultaneously. Significantly, this methodology will parallel Berrío’s personal migratory experience to a better extent given that she draws from her personal repertoire of experiences in Colombia and in the United States, as well as from South American folk, history, and myth, to create collages that speak to such experiences. With this established methodology, this research considers the interdependent role that imagination and memory play in art created within the framework of migration. Furthermore, it evidences the ways in which Berrío’s collage, Aluna, materializes and embodies the concepts of memory and migration.