The contemporary mapuche graphic narrative. From the Bulletins to the work of Pedro Melinao

Abstract

With an aesthetic and intercultural approach, this work investigates how the ancestral Mapuche visual language is updated in the new media and discursive canons of contemporary graphic narrative, taking as reference the first Bulletins to the work of the architect and visual artist Pedro Melinao, limited to his Malón Weblog. In these works we can observe a graphic humor oriented towards political criticism, a direct style marked by a realistic aesthetic, and a function of reaffirmation and visibility of cultural identity. Particularly, Melinao’s work is characterized by traditional and historical scenes, portraiture, and visual metaphors that expose the relationship of intercultural conflict through stereotypical traits of one person and another. At the level of the discursive canon, it generates conceptual devices with a Mapuche imprint, redefining the western canon; and, at a cultural level, it introduces a political reading of actions and events from the perspective of azmapu or Mapuche regulations. In summary, these works update elements of ancestral expressions, and, from their discursive specificity, expand the characteristics of contemporary artistic expressions, energizing the current system of Mapuche art and literature.