Decolonizing the image

By Joselyn Bahena, Anna Birsa, Julissa Navarro and Alex Ortiz Miranda

The concept of decolonizing the image is linked to the exploration of critical thinking and to changing our routines to question and challenge established power structures. To decolonize the image, we must recognize that the image itself doesn’t do anything, but rather the imaginary that is created surrounding the image through the colonized narrative structures that appear in social media and in the surrounding culture, that we must dismantle.

Metromuster is a collective that focuses on the production of audiovisuals with an emphasis on social change. They understand that decolonization is a way to reappropriate culture. To do this, they steer away from the dominating industry of audiovisuals and recover images for the community, not for institutions. They report that “we have to invent a new and better world that is healthy and creative and that lets others shape reality” (Metromuster 27:35-27:43). In this sense, imagination can become a tool for transformation and resistance that can open doors to more diversity, equality, and critical awareness. When they say, “invent a new world,” they mean that if we only consume colonized images, then we continue to live in that same oppressive world.

Also, to decolonize the image, we can explore the perspective of OVNI, a rhizomatic collective that focuses on archiving the archaeology of lives. They have identified a veil that exists that covers reality, which makes us judge someone for superficial things. Such as stereotypes, preconceived ideas that are imposed by oppressive systems: “I see a person from a certain place, of a certain gender, race, ideology and I create something that covers you or covers me, and visions can perforate this. Visions come from silence, from emptiness. They are daughters of darkness, and they create space and light” (OVNI 29:30-29:43).

Decolonizing the image entails a change in our perspectives and calls on the public to take ownership of the narrative of their own realities. To decolonize the image, we must return to silence, to emptiness, to our inner experiences, and let the images be born and not be tempted by the market or by propaganda.

Interviews Cited

Metromuster. Interview by Palmar Álvarez-Blanco. Constelación de los comunes, 6 Mar 2018, https://constelaciondeloscomunes.org/metromuster-2/. Accessed 1 Nov 2025.

OVNI. Interview by Palmar Álvarez-Blanco. Constelación de los comunes, 6 Mar 2018, https://constelaciondeloscomunes.org/ovni-2/. Accessed 1 Nov 2025.