Juan Guillermo Rúa Figueroa’s archive: the comprehension of the experience of an afro-intelectual in Medellín in the XXth century

Abstract

The article is based on the desk study of the artistic experience of the multifaceted afro-colombian artist and theater man Juan Guillermo Rúa Figueroa, whose political-artistic trajectory allows us to recognize and identify an afro-intellectual from Medellín in the second half of the 20th century. By describing the processes and the various avatars in the formation, preservation, organization, digitalization, dissemination and study of his personal archive, we try to elucidate the structural character of racism, clandestinization and mnemocide of afro-intellectuality in Medellín and Colombia. As theoretical-methodological support, we start from the “wandering epistemology” emanating from the trajectory of the intellectual Manuel Zapata Olivella, which hermeneutically opens the archive in the direction of unveiling the mechanisms of racialization.