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What does this page contain?

The content of this webpage combines excerpts from Melanie Garland's PhD manuscript and research project, which began in 2015. These fragments have been part of exhibitions, installations, sonorities, and individual and collective publications in art and social science journals and books. They can be seen, read, and heard in this multimodal online space that presents the more-than-text form of this dissertation.

How do you navigate this page?

The structure of this webpage encourages the viewer to navigate freely between chapters, past exhibitions, artworks, essays, and more. Each element stands on its own and invites the viewer to explore it individually or in combinations, akin to overlapping and juxtaposed puzzle pieces. This design mirrors a stratigraphic layering that reveals the various material, theoretical, and temporal dimensions of the dissertation.

Language considerations

I (Melanie), acknowledge that this manuscript and webpage are crafted in English. Choosing English was a deliberate effort to move beyond the confines of the German academic sphere, which can be challenging to access due to language barriers. My goal was to engage with diverse communities around the world, particularly my artistic and anthropological circles, where English—albeit a modified version of it—serves as our primary means of communication.

While I regret not being able to write this manuscript in my mother tongue, Spanish, the practicality of reaching broader academic and artistic networks necessitated the use of English. In the future, I aspire to translate the entire dissertation or specific sections into Spanish. This effort aims to connect with the Spanish-speaking diaspora, both within and beyond Latin America.