September 20 - December 7, 2024
From the Visual Arts Center:
“Texas/New Mexico-based artist Violette Bule has been selected as the Visual Arts Center’s Fall 2024 Artist-in-Residence. Bule will develop a new body of work in collaboration with University of Texas at Austin students, staff, and faculty for presentation in an exhibition opening September 20, 2024.
Violette Bule’s exhibition, Una Luz: Photography in Venezuelan Penitentiaries, will feature photographs, text, audio, and site-specific installations that draw from an archive of over 3,000 images and digital media created by inmates who participated in a series of unsanctioned photography workshops organized by Bule in Venezuelan prisons between 2010 and 2012. The exhibition will invite visitors to examine the value of creative expression in situations of extreme hardship while initiating conversations about the ethics of archival-based projects involving marginalized communities.
In addition to her gallery exhibition, throughout the summer and fall of 2024, Bule will lead and participate in a diverse range of public programs at the University of Texas at Austin. These include interactive workshops, lectures, guided tours, and film screenings. These initiatives aim to expand the purview of the artist’s research by addressing the questions: How does power manifest over marginalized communities through the production of archives? Who holds the right to express power by disseminating recorded narratives and archival materials? What imbalances exist in archive-based cultural labor?
Una Luz: Photography in Venezuelan Penitentiaries is organized by the Visual Arts Center and is co-curated by Violette Bule, Michel Otayek, and 2024–25 VAC Curatorial Fellow Maysa Martins.
The 2024 VAC Artist-in-Residence is made possible through generous funding provided by the Kaleta A. Doolin Foundation for an artist residency supporting women working in contemporary art. The residency and subsequent exhibition are also supported by the College of Fine Arts at the University of Texas at Austin and the Visual Arts Center Circle members.
doolin logo
About the artist:
Artist and photographer Violette Bule examines relationships between globalization and structural inequality through the lens of migratory politics, populist rhetoric and ideology, and identity-based discrimination. At the heart of her practice is the belief that art can serve as the foundation for creative social and political empowerment. Bule’s work has been included in numerous group exhibitions around the globe, including the biennial exhibition La Poli/Gráfica de Puerto Rico y El Baribe: Bajo Presión (San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2024), Day Jobs at the Blanton Museum of Art and Cantor Arts Center (Austin and Stanford, U.S., 2023–24), and the Artbo Fair 2022 exhibition Ante América/Referentes (Bogotà, Colo mbia) among many others. In 2021, Bule’s public art project Rethinking Your Neighborhood was presented in Houston as part of a multi-institutional collaboration between Art League Houston, the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs, and the Houston Arts Alliance. In 2020, Bule was featured in the solo exhibition Echo Chamber: Violette Bule at The Transart Foundation for Art and Anthropology (Houston, U.S., 2020). Among her many awards, Bule received the 2023 Horton/Artadia Award and was selected for the Soma Summer residency program awarded by the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros. Her most recent project, De la Lleca al Cohue: Photography in Venezuelan Penitentiaries, was recently published by Roga Ediciones in collaboration with art historian Michel Otayek. Blue earned a bachelor’s degree at the Escuala Activa de Fotografía in Mexico City and an MFA in Studio Art at the University of Houston.
About the Visual Arts Center Artist-in-Residence Program:
The Visual Arts Center hosts two artists-in-residence each academic year, and each residency culminates in an exhibition in the VAC’s main gallery space. The artist-in-residence program offers emerging artists an opportunity to engage with students and faculty at UT, to utilize the myriad resources on campus—from special collections to libraries and archives—and to realize an exhibition of their work. For many past recipients of the VAC residency, this exhibition has been the first solo presentation of their work in Texas.
About the Visual Arts Center:
The Visual Arts Center (VAC) is a 13,000-square-foot gallery situated in the College of Fine Arts at The University of Texas at Austin. Our mission is to provide a platform for artists, curators, and educators to experiment, test ideas, and take risks. Through our exhibitions and public programs, we aim to spark generative conversations about art and contemporary society. We believe art has the potential to unite, inform, and inspire us to take action toward creating a more just world. The VAC is always free and open to the public.”
On View: September 20, 2024 | 12–5 pm
23rd and Trinity Streets
Austin, 78712 TX
512-232-2348
Get directions