WHAT IS THE ICAA DOCUMENTS PROJECT?
First launched in 2002, Documents of 20th-Century Latin American and Latino Art: A Digital Archive and Publications Project (now Documents of Latin American and Latino Art) is an initiative dedicated to the recovery and publication of primary source materials and critical texts related to Latin American and Latinx art.* The initiative addresses the endemic lag in access to documentation in the field of Latin American and Latinx art history, research, and teaching by digitizing writings by artists, leaders of artistic movements, critics, and curators from Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and the United States.
The Documents Project was one of the earliest digital humanities initiatives in the field of Latin American art. Cutting across national and cultural boundaries, the digital archive and accompanying publications provide an intellectual foundation for the exhibition, collection, and interpretation of art produced along this cultural axis. This digital archive provides global access to archival materials while simultaneously connecting geographically dispersed scholars and other producers of knowledge. The Documents Project purposefully does not collect archives: it is primarily an access project to ensure that physical archives continue to reside in their local communities and home institutions.
* We have retained the use of the term "Latino" / "Latina" when referring to the texts and editorial content collected by the Documents Project in its first phase of recovery, executed with our historic partners. In this new phase we propose the use of the term Latinx to refer to individuals, communities, and contemporary discourses. The use of both terms on the Documents Project website recognizes this evolving terminology and respects both its historical and more recent and inclusive forms.
GROWTH
After an intensive period of team-based work operating in over 10 countries, the ICAA will continue to rely on ad hoc research teams, but will shift its focus toward partnerships with artist archives, foundations, and targeted public and private research institutions, facilitated by new features of the redesigned website which was re-launched in 2020.