The Institute for Cuban Studies at Florida International University (FIU) presents a lecture by Dr. Adriana Méndez, “Ecomythologies: Ana Mendieta and the Cuban Imaginary,” on Thursday, May 28, 2026, at 2:00pm, at the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum, FIU -Modesto A. Maidique Campus, 11200 S.W. 8th Street, Miami, Florida). See description below.
Description: Ana Mendieta’s earth-body sculptures, grounded in the materiality of earthly substances—fire, rock, sand, feathers, mud—constitute one of the most innovative body of works in contemporary art and reframes the Cuban Imaginary, revitalizing the connection between island and diaspora.
This lecture examines Ana Mendieta’s Siluetas as a mythologizing of landscape through the female form. It then turns to the Rupestrian Sculptures carved at Jaruco Park near Havana, a series that retrieves the Taíno legacy while aligning with Fernando Ortiz’s concept of ecomythologies, to suggest the way that Caribbean nature shapes the islands’ creative imagination.
This event is free and open to the public. To confirm your in-person attendance, please write ics@fiu.edu or call (305) 348–1991.
Adriana Méndez Rodenas is Emerita Professor of Latin American and Comparative Literature at the University of Iowa, and Emerita Professor of Spanish at the University of Missouri. She is a prolific writer on nineteenth-century to contemporary Cuban literature. Her dedication to the art of Ana Mendieta resulted in Mythologies of Return: Revisiting Ana Mendieta’s Rupestrian Sculptures (2014), an artist’s book in collaboration with Aurora de Armendi.
For more information, see https://calendar.fiu.edu/event/ecomythologies-ana-mendieta-and-the-cuban-imaginary
[For photo above, from the Silueta series, see https://www.christies.com/en/stories/ana-mendieta-collecting-guide-8b5405708ab547529b1aad2364d88d76. Also see https://www.icaboston.org/art/ana-mendieta/silueta-works-mexico/ and https://blogdelesllobes.com/2016/05/05/el-arte-de-la-tierra-y-de-la-sangre-de-ana-mendieta-serie-siluetas/.]
The Institute for Cuban Studies at Florida International University (FIU) presents a lecture by Dr. Adriana Méndez, “Ecomythologies: Ana Mendieta and the Cuban Imaginary,” on Thursday, May 28, 2026, at 2:00pm, at the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum, FIU -Modesto A. Maidique Campus, 11200 S.W. 8th Street, Miami, Florida). See description below. Description: Ana Mendieta’s
