Alba Quintero Retis

Retis’ live performance deals with the complexities of relationships, whether familial, friendship, or romantic. Using the backdrop of her personal life, Runner Up and Generations of Swallowing mediate the  meanings of care, nurture, and maternal love. Runner Up contemplates the difficulties of motherhood, especially when the role of the maternal figure becomes contested. Generations of Swallowing highlights how the lack of agency for women enacts generational trauma in Latinx families. Retis further contextualizes the themes of these songs through the exploitation of the flora, fauna, and bodies in the Americas, reminding us all that the personal is forever the political. .

Alba Quintero Retis (she/her) is a senior at Gallatin analyzing cultural production through the understanding of political intervention in Latin America. She uses poetry, singing, and songwriting as artistic mediums to investigate matters of identity, culture, and politics. Retis is particularly interested in reimagining the forms of an archive to interrogate how art, music, literature, objects, and performance act as a way of understanding cross-cultural knowledge.