Digital Latinamericanism: Latin American Art and Digital Humanities

Abstract

ICAA Documents Project, an ambitious digital archive of Latino and Latin American art primary documents launched by the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA) –Museum of Fine Arts Houston (MFAH), was first made available online in 2012. This paper analyzes this repository, focusing on how the archival architecture of this platform has been informed by recent discussions on the future of Digital Humanities in, on and from Latin America. Our goal is to describe the way in which the ICAA Documents Project uses the Getty Foundation’s Art & Architecture Thesaurus when producing metadata records and authoritative voices. By revisiting Latino and Latin American art collections and archives in a variety of US museums on the one hand, and in describing on the other how Digital Humanities strategies has facilitated global access to this sort of online repositories, this paper elaborates on what we call the new digital latinamericanism.