Professor Cristina E. Pardo Porto describes her project titled "Seeing Through the Tropics," delving into the impact of colonial visual cultures on the evolving social and natural landscapes of the global Hispanophone tropics. Her focus is specifically on Central America and the Caribbean, examining how these regions' natural environments have historically been framed within the paradox of risk and leisure, wilderness and paradise. Pardo Porto proposes that a trend in contemporary diasporic art involves deconstructing imperial imaginaries rooted in racist stereotypes and extractive policies that have established "tropical" landscapes as colonial visual constructs.

Cristina E. Pardo Porto is Assistant Professor of Spanish in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics. Her research is centered around contemporary practices of photography, exploring visual themes related to race and gender, immigration, and nature. Through a transhistorical lens, she examines the visual cultures of the global diasporic networks of Central America and the Caribbean.