INTERVIEWS, MEDIA, & PRESS
El cafecito
In Episode 3, we throw it back to our beloved mini-series Reporting from LASA 2024, from Season 9. We welcome back Johann Kirchenbauer, a graduate student from the Spanish and Portuguese department, who sits down with fellow PhD candidate Waleska Solorzano to discuss her experience at LASA 2024. Specifically, they discuss her ongoing research on what she terms the “Venespora,” which she uses to think through the Venezuelan diaspora and its subversive artistic genealogy. Finally, Waleska discusses one of her many projects, the Venesporan Artists Project —a digital directory of contemporary Venezuelan artists from around the world. We hope you enjoy the episode!
Todosomos archive launch
Cornell University will present "Archives in Transit: TodoSomos and the Venezuelan Migration Crisis" on April 18, 2025, at the A.D. White House. The free symposium showcases thousands of handwritten testimonies from Venezuelan refugees collected by nonprofit TodoSomos between 2019 and 2021. These personal accounts document the experiences of nearly 8 million displaced Venezuelans who have fled economic hardship and political violence. The event features faculty experts, community representatives, Venezuelan artists, and founders of TodoSomos. Cornell scholars are digitizing the testimonies for online research access, preserving crucial documentation of one of Latin America's largest humanitarian crises. Article by Jose Beduya, Cornell University Library.
The Digital Co-Lab at Olin Library
Romance Languages Ph.D. student Waleska Solórzano participated in Cornell's Digital CoLab Summer Graduate Fellowship, where she developed "The Venesporan Artists Project"—a growing digital directory exploring the Venezuelan diaspora through creative practice. The project aims to unite Venezuelan artists from diverse backgrounds and locations in one digital space, examining diasporic experiences and fostering cross-cultural conversations. Solórzano valued the fellowship's interdisciplinary connections, collaborating with peers from music, art history, Southeast Asian studies, and data sciences. The Digital CoLab's "people over projects" philosophy helped her break academic silos while building lasting professional networks beyond her department. Article by Jose Beduya, Cornell University Library.