SUSANISIMA

Susana Vargas Cervantes is an interdisciplinary scholar, internationally recognized for her artistic and academic work at the intersections of alternative criminology, visual studies, and queer studies—in both Anglo North America and Latin America. Her research mines the connections between gender, sexuality, class, and skin tonalities to reconceptualize pigmentocracy as a system of perception.

She is the author of the book The Little Old Lady Killer: The Sensationalized Crimes of Mexico's First Female Serial Killer (NYU Press, 2019) and Mujercitos (Editorial RM, 2015). After a Fulbright Visiting Fellowship at Columbia University, she joined Carleton University as an Assistant Professor in Communication and Media Studies.

︎ MORE

BOOKS

︎ The Little Old Lady Killer

NYU Press, 2019

︎ Mujercitos

Editorial RM, 2015

︎ Aprehendiendo al delincuente

UNAM-McGill, 2011

WRITINGS

︎ Scholarly
︎ Essays

SPEAKING

︎ Podcasts
︎ Text Interviews
︎ Presentations

CURATORIAL

︎ TATE BRITAIN

Stan Firm inna Inglan

︎ JUMEX MUSEUM

En Girum Imus Nocte et Consumimur Igni

︎ CCE

Lo que se ve no se pregunta

OTHER PROJECTS

︎ Mesas de Diálogo

︎ Queering curatorial practices
︎ Seven to Eleven dreams

︎ A life in a liminal space

ABOUT

A LIFE IN A LIMINAL SPACE

Pop song writing

Saadane Afif invited me to write a song about Marcel Duchamp’s ready made The Fountain as part of his exhibition “The Fountain Archives” at Museo Jumex in 2019.

Jumex Museum, Mexico City
MAY.2019

︎ More on the exhibition
︎ More on Saadane Afif “The Fountain Archives” project

FA.0000
A Life In A Liminal Space

Susana Vargas Cervantes/S.A.

I long to be contained
So, I poured myself on you
But through your wholes I disappeared
And I don’t know where I went

Ambitions gone beyond
Challenged gestures and affects
Upside down representation

Accused of plagiarism to a plumber
Plagiarism to a spectacular Elsa
I don’t know
But yet you defined me and us

Ambitions gone beyond
Challenged gestures and affects
Machine aesthetics

As I parted
Divided
I came together again
Your wholes were well thought
I just didn’t know

Intentions gone beyond
Challenged gestures and affects
Upside down interpretations

You made it or not
There is a new thought
You knew it or not
I was contained

Forever changed
I live in a liminal space
Lost between the ordinary
Or elevated to the form

Intentions gone beyond
Challenged gestures and affects
Upside down interpretations

I turned yellow