In early March, we welcomed Dr. Priscilla Solis-Ybarra, Associate Professor of English at the University of North Texas, for two incredible Urban Bird Project events—a workshop with UBP scholars about “Steps Toward Kinship: Developing your EcoGenealogy” and a plática led by Dr. Ybarra with artist-scholar Paula Gaetano-Adi on “Guanaquerx: The First Robot to Cross the Andes.” During the workshop, Dr. Ybarra led scholars through a research and writing workshop that helped us often develop hidden and marginalized eco-genealogies, and the incredible plática offered a stunning example of a community-engaged animal-technological praxis with robotic performance art, local histories, and pluriversal futures. Our team of scholars was deeply inspired by these engagements, which helped us further our community-based and interdisciplinary research training with communities at UTSA and Yanaguana, Tejas. Mil gracias to Professors Ybarra and Gaetano-Adi for their generosity and abundant grace as we shared stories and learned together.
You can explore some of Professor Ybarra’s work here and Professor Gaetano-Adi’s work here.
