Mariana Reyes

Profile

Research interests

The Anthropocene, political ecology, science and art museums, environmental activism, climate justice, decolonial theory.

PhD project

Decolonising futures: representations of the Anthropocene in the contemporary museum space

I combine feminist, critical race and decolonial discourse, and museum studies in order to examine the role of museums in curating Anthropocene imaginaries. My project’s primary objective is to analyse how museums and public art act as agents that promote understandings of ‘a new age of humans.’ In this respect, I critically review how museums’ philosophies and practices inform their roles in communicating scientific knowledge; and how this in turn shapes the personal positions and political engagement of their public audiences.

Supervisors

• Kathryn Yusoff, School of Geography, QMUL
• Kerry Holden, School of Geography, QMUL

Academic background

• BA Biology – Universidad de Guadalajara
• MSc Environment, Culture and Society - University of Edinburgh

Funding

• Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT)

Conference papers

• ´Decolonial Anthropocene: communicating the environmental crisis from the Global South´. Conference Alterities: intervention and ecologies of care in changing worlds. Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.
• ‘The post-human museum: curating the Anthropocene’ Conference Art in the Anthropocene. Trinity College Dublin.
• ‘Communicating the science of a new epoch: representations of the Anthropocene in the contemporary museum space’ XVII Symposium of Mexican students and studies in the UK, University of Cambridge.
• ‘Exhibiting the Anthropocene: decolonizing futures in the contemporary museum space’ Postgraduates in Latin American Studies Annual Conference. University of York.

Publications

• El discurso del Antropoceno: limitaciones ante la emergencia climática, in Una revisión crítica del Reporte Especial del 1.5°C del Panel Intergubernamental de Cambio Climático: Explorando otras visiones y alternativas hacia una sociedad baja en emisiones. Fundación Heinrich Böll. 2019.
• Interwoven voices of the Anthropocene: multispeicies stories in the contemporary museum space. The Activist History Review.
• Descolonizando el saber: la experiencia de la Universidad de la Tierra en Oaxaca, México, in Jandiekua, Revista mexicana de educación ambiental. No. 2.

Book reviews

• Latour, B. (2018). Down to Earth: politics in the New Climatic Regime. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 140 pp. in  Revista de Investigación en Geografía. No. 2. 2019. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Professional memberships

• Postgraduates in Latin American Studies – Committee member
• American Association of Geographers – Member
• Society of Latin American Studies – Member
• Conference of Latin American Geography – Member

Research