Tina Escaja
Tina Escaja, also known as Alm@ Pérez, is a Spanish-American writer, activist, feminist scholar and digital artist based in Burlington, Vermont. She is a Distinguished Professor of Romance Languages and Gender & Women's Studies, and the Director of the Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies Program at the University of Vermont. She is the winner of the International Poetry Prize Dulce María Loynaz, and the National Latino Poetry Award for Young Adults, Isabel Campoy-Alma Flor Ada. She is considered a pioneer in the field of electronic literature in Spanish. She is a full member of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language, and Corresponding member of the Royal Spanish Academy.
Life
She has earned degrees from the University of Barcelona and the University of Pennsylvania. She served as President of Feministas Unidas, Inc., President of ALDEEU, and President of AEGS.Critical reception
Her creative work has been defined as a crossover between literary writing, digital art, video and multimedia projects.In the year 2000 she published the hypertextual poem VeloCity, considered a pioneer in the field of digital poetry in Spanish, and one of "the first hypertextual works written by women."
According to scholars and media critics María Goicoechea and Laura Sánchez, "Hypertext is, for Tina Escaja, the insignia of this new cyberfeminism that proposes a ‘non-essential modern subject’." The same critics note a change in this perception in Escaja's project Código de barras, a project based on barcode technology: “now technology is used to compel us to think about a perturbing reality of control and dominion.”
Media critic Maya Zalbidea sees in her interactive hypertextual novel Pinzas de metal an example of electronic Cut-up technique, and also states that "the multilinearity of the story provides the reader a feeling of intrigue and bewilderment."
Regarding her award-winning poetry collection Caída libre, the writer and critic Sabas Martín finds connections with the innovating poetry of César Vallejo, and the images created by Federico García Lorca and Gabriela Mistral.
Her work has been featured at Ciberfeminismos, tecnotextualidades y transgéneros. Literatura digital en español escrita por mujeres. Isabel Navas Ocaña and Dolores Romero Eds. Universidad Complutense, 2023 and Voces encendidas. Mujeres, arte y tecnología. ''María Goicoechea y Laura Sánchez Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2023''
Selected exhibitions and anthologies
Escaja's poetry and digital works have been exhibited in museums and galleries such as the Museum Wolf Vostell Malpartida de Cáceres ; Centro Cultural Okendo ;the BCA Center, the Flynndog Gallery, and the Art Hop in Burlington, Vermont; the Galerie du Centre de Design ;Matadero Madrid, Madrid, Spain; Museo Provincial de Lugo, the Lewis Glucksman Gallery, and the Mission District Cultural Center for Latino Arts, San Francisco.Her work has been translated into six languages, and has been included in anthologies such as the Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 3;Escenario de crisis: dramaturgas españolas del nuevo milenio;''Tasting Asia: An Anthology of Poems of the 2016 Taipei Poetry Festival;Dos Poemas y un Café: Mujeres poetas visuales II;L'altra Penelope: Antologia di scrittrici di lingua spagnola;Escritores españoles en Estados Unidos;The Americas Poetry Festival of New York 2015;Pegasos de dos siglos: Poesía en Kentucky 1977-2007;Que no cesen rumores. Antología poética;Trilogía Poética de las mujeres en Hispanoamérica ; and The WRUV Reader. A Vermont Writers’Anthology'';
Poetry collections
La odisea marina de María Traviesa Isabel Campoy-Alma Flor Ada Award 2017. Manual destructivista/Destructivist Manual Translations by Kristin Dykstra.Caída libre/Free Fall Translations by Mark Eisner. Prologues by María Victoria Atencia & Li Kuei-Hsien Respiración mecánica / Respiració mecànica / Hats hartze mekanikoa & VeloCity Translations by María Cinta Montagut, Mariña Pérez Rei and Itxaro Borda. Prologue by Marta Segarra 13 Lunas 13 Prologue by Jill Robbins. Código de barras Prologue by Concha García & Sharon Keefe-Ugalde. Caída libre Prologue by María Victoria Atencia. Caída Libre Dulce María Loynaz Award 2004.- ''Respiración mecánica''
Electronic works
- Realidad Mitagada, 2025 uses Augmented Reality to showcase poetry based on alchemy, robotics, and COVID-19.
- “Mar y Virus / Virus and the Sea.” Messages from the Anthropocene. Flynndog Gallery, Burlington, VT. November 2020-June 2021.
- Pinzas de metal. “Afterflash: Showcasing Flash Fiction, Poetry, and Essays from The NEXT.” Collective digital exhibition curated by Dene Grigar, Electronic Literature Lab. January, 2021.
- “According to your likeness / my Image.” University of Central Florida Art Gallery, Orlando, July 2020.
- Also shown in The Glucksman Museum. Cork, Ireland, July 11–17, 2019.
Fiction
Asesinato en el laboratorio de idiomas / Murder in the Language Lab English Translation by John W. Warren.- "Bola luna" International Prize ‘Ana María Matute’.