Francisco Llinás Casas
- Department of Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American Studies (SPLAS)
- Department of European Languages and Cultures (DELC)
- School of Literatures, Languages, and Cultures
Contact details
- Email: francisco.llinas@ed.ac.uk
Qualifications
PhD in Hispanic Studies, University of Edinburgh (2022-2026)
Provisional thesis title: "Shifting the Arauca Frontier: Efforts of Containment in Venezuelan Diasporic Culture, 2016 to 2025" - Supervised by Dr. Jessica Gordon-Burroughs and Dr. Iona Macintyre.
Master of Latin American Studies (Hispanic Studies), University of Edinburgh (2021-2022)
MScR dissertation on the reinterpretation of abstract geometry as a homecoming strategy in Venezuelan diasporic art.
Bachelor of Arts Honours in Fine Art, Glasgow School of Art (2017-2021)
BA (Hons) dissertation on Venezuelan exile art and Latin American post-colonial thought.
Responsibilities & affiliations
Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities - AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership Studentship
Committee Member - Postgraduates in Latin American Studies (PILAS)
UNESCO Chair Refugee Integration Through Languages and the Arts (RILA)
Research summary
My research lies at the intersection of culture, history, and migration within Venezuelan studies. I examine how oil-fuelled modernisation, the dialectic of civilisation and barbarism, and their associated social hierarchies are mediated through Venezuelan visual and textual discourse. I pay particular attention to how diaspora and migration challenge these cultural imaginaries and rearticulate dynamics of social and spatial containment. Drawing on material culture, digital humanities, and critical theory, I have pursued these interests not only through academic writing but have also by developing a curatorial and public engagement practice that extends my research into collaborative, interdisciplinary settings.
Current research interests
Latin American exile; diaspora studies; migrant and refugee representation; colonialism and neo-colonialism in Latin America; popular culture; digital humanities; spatiality and temporality.Knowledge exchange
As part of his artistic practice, Francisco has participated in numerous art residencies, developed public art commissions and facilitated socially engaged art projects focusing on forced exile and displacement. He has worked with numerous galleries, museums and arts organisations, including the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, the Southbank Centre and the National Theatre of Scotland. He is a fellow artist at University of Glasgow's UNESCO Chair Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts.
Francisco recently finished a year-long Research and Curation Residency at Alchemy Film and Arts, where he co-curated four programmes on Venezuela's history of extraction and its current migration crisis for Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival 2025. Similarly, he was a Visiting Doctoral Researcher at Cornell University last year, where was working alongside Dr Irina Troconis during the fall semester.
Affiliated research centres
Current project grants
Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities - AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership Studentship
SGSAH Visiting Doctoral Researcher
SGSAH Engagement Fund
Past project grants
Royal Scottish Academy - New Graduate Award (2020)
Glasgow School of Art - Critical Theory Award (2019 -2020)
Invited speaker
"Deconstructing Oxford" – University of Oxford, Centre on Migration Policy and Society (COMPAS).
“Alter: Exploring Mobility through Participatory Art” – Southbank Centre, London, 2022.
Organiser
2025 PILAS Conference - University of Bristol
“Inventario: A Conversation with Dr Irina Troconis and Dr Raquel Rivas Rojas” – Online, 2025.
“Charting Extraction: A Conversation with Dr Carolyn Fornoff and Artist Esperanza Mayobre” – Cornell University, Ithaca, 2024.
SGSAH Symposium 2024 - ARC University of Glasgow
Conversation with writer and curator Aimé Iglesias Lukin. "This Must Be the Place: An Oral History of Latin American Artists in New York 1965–1975," University of Edinburgh (2022).
Participant
“Build what we hate. Destroy what we love: A Conversation with Dr Irina Troconis, Ronald Pizzoferrato, Erick Moreno Superlano & Francisco Llinás” – Apexart, New York City, 2024.
“Amber: Artist Talk with Francisco Llinás” – Edinburgh International Festival, 2022.
Papers delivered
“Shifting the Arauca Frontier: Exile as Containment in Venezuelan Diasporic Literature” – Oxford Berlin Latin American Conference: Temporalities in Latin America, Freie Universität Berlin, 2025.
“La noche será bárbara en Caracas: exilio como alternativa al barbarismo en la literatura diaspórica venezolana” – II Congreso Internacional: Humanidades en Tiempo Presente, Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, Caracas, 2025.
“The Night would be Barbaric in Caracas: Exile as Alternative to Barbarism in Venezuelan Diasporic Literature” – Society for Latin American Studies (SLAS) Conference, University of Bristol, 2025.
“Internacionalizando el Nichismo: The Politics of Taste and Space in Venezuelan Diasporic Digital Culture” – Researching Latin America Symposium, University of Edinburgh, 2024.
“Space Reclamation and the Racial Politics of Taste in Venezuelan Diasporic Digital Culture.” – SLAS Conference, University of Amsterdam, 2024.
“Breaching the Modern City: Class and Racial Dynamics among Venezuelan Migrants in the US” – Migration and border regimes: Immobilities, Temporalities and Categorisations, University of Sheffield, 2024.
“Abstract Homecoming: Diasporic Intimacy and Homecoming in Venezuelan Exile Art” – Re-pensando Venezuela, Cornell University, Ithaca, 2023.
“The Crossroads of the Venezuelan Migration: Analysing the Venezuelan Diaspora through Intersectionality” – Venezuela, Dispersed: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Venezuelan Migration and the Diaspora, University of Exeter, 2022.