March 8, 2010                                               

AMHERST, Mass.—Renowned Argentine photographer and human rights activist Marcelo Brodsky will have a public conversation with Amherst College’s Ilan Stavans, the Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture, titled “Once @ 9:53: Turning Terrorism into a Fotonovela” on Thursday, March 25, at 7 p.m. in Amherst’s Stirn Auditorium. Brodsky is in the Pioneer Valley for two days of activities at Amherst and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and this event will be free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the college’s Corliss Lamont Lectureship for a Peaceful World, Georges Lurcy Charitable and Educational Trust Funds, Georges Lurcy Lecture Series and Department of Spanish, along with UMass’ Architecture+Design Program and Center for Heritage and Society.

Brodsky and Stavans’ discussion will revolve around the fotonovela they created together, Once @ 9:53. The illustrated novel tells the story of the July 18, 1994, terrorist attack on the AMIA, the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aries.

Brodsky is an artist and human rights activist now based in Buenos Aires, after many years in exile in Barcelona. He has had solo exhibitions in Buenos Aires, São Paulo, New York, Rotterdam, Montevideo, Rome, Caracas and Amsterdam, and his work is represented in the collections of the Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires; the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; the Joaquim Paiva Collection; the Fernando Baur Collection; and numerous private collections. He is a member of the Commission for the Monument to the Victims of State Terrorism, Buenos Aires, and on the board of directors of Buena Memoria, a nongovernmental organization dedicated to human rights work in Argentina. He also runs the Latinstock photo agency.

Brodsky’s visit to the area also involves a lunchtime seminar titled “The Memory Park and ESMA: Preserving and Remembering State Terrorism” in Room 353 of the UMass Fine Arts Center on Friday, March 26, at noon. That gathering is also free and open to the public, although seating is limited.

For more information, call (413) 542-2317 or e-mail mpage@art.umass.edu and istavans@amherst.edu.

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