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Events

The Artist and the Book | Violette Bule in Conversation with Irina Troconis

Date & Time

Sat. Nov. 07, 2026 4 PM-5:30 PM

Location Main Campus | Beck Building

Parking at Beck Garage
Drop off at Beck Building

Call for Questions 713-639-7325

Email Your Questions [email protected]

Events

The Artist and the Book | Violette Bule in Conversation with Irina Troconis

Date & Time

Sat. Nov. 07, 2026 4 PM-5:30 PM

Location Main Campus | Beck Building

Parking at Beck Garage
Drop off at Beck Building
The series “The Artist and the Book” provides a platform for artists who engage in research as a central part of their practice to talk about the nature of books, research, and the creative process.
 
In this conversation, Houston-based artist Violette Bule talks with Irina Troconis, Cornell University professor of Latin American studies. Bule’s book De la Lleca al Cohue: Fotografía en Penitenciarías Venezolanas / Photography in Venezuelan Penitentiaries features photographs by incarcerated Venezuelans who participated in a series of workshops Bule coordinated over the course of three years. The conversation explores the complex portrayal of incarcerated individuals and the role that photography and books play in broader cultural debates about art, authorship, and agency.
 
A book signing follows the discussion.
 

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About the Speakers
Violette Bule is a conceptual artist whose interdisciplinary practice weaves together archival research, community participation, and installation. Using social and economic vulnerability as a catalyst for creativity and political agency, her work engages memory, data, digital technologies, and social justice to examine structural violence, migration, identity politics, and populism.

Irina R. Troconis is associate professor of Latin American studies at Cornell University. Her research focuses on the relationship between memory, politics, and cultural production in contemporary Latin America, with an emphasis on Venezuela. She is the author of The Necromantic State and the co-organizer of the conversation series (Re)thinking Venezuela.

Call for Questions 713-639-7325

Email Your Questions [email protected]

The Hirsch Library’s “The Artist and the Book” lecture series receives generous funding from Judy and Scott Nyquist.
Learning and Interpretation programs at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, receive generous support from H-E-B; Sempra Foundation; the Brown Foundation, Inc.; the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo; the Joe Barnhart Foundation; the Cockrell Family Fund; the CFP Foundation; the Claire & Theodore Morse Foundation; the Junior League of Houston, Inc.; and additional generous donors.
 
Endowment funds are provided by the Louise Jarrett Moran Bequest; Caroline Wiess Law; Windgate Foundation; the William Randolph Hearst Foundation; Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff; the Fondren Foundation; BMC Software, Inc.; the Wallace Foundation; the Neal Myers and Ken Black Children’s Art Fund; the Eleanor and Frank Freed Foundation; Medha and Shashank Karve; Virginia and Ira Jackson; Jesse H. Jones II; the CFP Foundation; the Favrot Fund; gifts in memory of John Wynne; Neiman Marcus Youth Arts Education; gifts in memory of Peter Lotz; and gifts in honor of Beth Schneider.