Mara Polgovsky

Dr. Mara Polgovsky is a Junior Research Fellow at Queens' College, University of Cambridge, affiliated with the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics and the Centre of Latin American Studies Spanish & Portuguese section.

Her research focuses on twentieth century Latin American art and visual culture, exploring synchronic developments across heterogeneous local contexts while challenging dated discussions about originality, influence, and autonomy. She examines experimental artistic practices including mail-art, cybernetics, performance, collage, and video art through the work of Argentine artist León Ferrari, Chilean writer and activist Diamela Eltit, and Polish-Mexican émigré Marcos Kurtycz. Her work interrogates the complex interrelations between politics, ethics, and aesthetics in contemporary art within the context of global capital flows, technological changes, and political reconfigurations.

Dr. Polgovsky situates her research in dialogue with thinkers like Jacques Rancière, Emmanuel Levinas, and Judith Butler while also engaging with less canonical perspectives from activism, networked communities, and decolonial thought. Her publications cover Benjamin and Brecht, the Latin American neo-avant-garde, video art, performance, relational aesthetics, and the role of religion and the sacred in contemporary art. She has completed a book project exploring 'sabotage' and its etymological connections to noise production, demonstrating her innovative approach to understanding artistic and political resistance.