Decolonial Aesthesis and the Task of Listening

In this talk we will present the main principles of decolonial aesthesis. We will see how the canon of aesthetics has been implicated in the reproduction of the modern/colonial divide. Decolonizing is not a simple call for pluralizing the canon, it also signals a transition away from the primacy of representation and enunciation towards an aesthesis of reception and listening. Can we think of music as primordially a space of reception and listening?

 

Rolando Vázquez is a teacher and decolonial thinker. He is regularly invited to deliver keynotes on decoloniality at academic and cultural institutions. Vázquez is currently Associate Professor of Sociology at University College Roosevelt and Cluster Chair at the University College Utrecht. Since 2010, he co-directs with Walter Mignolo the annual Maria Lugones Decolonial Summer School, now hosted by the Van Abbemuseum. In 2016, under the direction of Gloria Wekker, he co-authored the report "Let’s do Diversity" of the University of Amsterdam Diversity Commission. Vázquez's work places the question of the possibility of an ethical life at the core of decolonial thought and advocates for the decolonial transformation of cultural and educational institutions. His most recent publication is "Vistas of Modernity: Decolonial aesthesis and the End of the Contemporary" (Mondriaan Fund 2020).