Waving the flag of progress, many modern Latin American states have decreed as terrorists indigenous organizations fighting against extractivist projects and laws. Intensified in recent decades, this struggle is not between two forces claiming the right to exploit the Earth's riches, but the clash between two worldviews with contradictory understandings of and relationships with Nature.
Taking as its starting point the manifestation of monstrous races portrayed as a scientific fact in 16th-century chronicles, maps, and illustrations of the New World, the Visual Atlas of the American Monster (VAAM) examines the political and cultural implications of the “indigenous monstrosity” unveiling its neocolonial transfiguration in the current dehumanization of native communities raised in defense of nature.
