As a Latinx Diasporican, my identity has been shaped by the ambiguity the United States imposes on Puerto Rico, a place that has always been the object, never the agent, of its own discovery. Colonial powers have determined the fate of its people, land, and built environments for centuries.
My research and body of work examine Puerto Rican identity through a diasporic lens, exploring the intersections of colonialism, sovereignty, gender, memory, objectification, identity fragmentation, cultural resilience, narrative reclamation, and the color blue. These themes are articulated through materials tied to their own colonial histories: concrete, steel, wood, sugar, plastics, and limestone, each emblematic of 451 years of rule under Spanish and American empire. Through their symbolism, I evoke time, decay, restoration, and resilience, as the commodification of land and bodies continues to transform the archipelago into a tourist site now occupied by fewer native Puerto Ricans than Americans.
My figurative sculptures function as contemporary zemis, objects rooted in the Taíno tradition of giving form to one's relationship with the spiritual, ancestral, and cosmic. Like the zemi, each work is singular, shaped by my own perspective and connection to these histories. The human forms and their surrounding objects employ a range of sculptural strategies including elongated or shortened limbs, dissolving identities, sun-bleached color, and the merging of body and object, to portray dignity under erasure and the adaptation forced upon people both on the island and in the diaspora.
Drawing on the theories of Bonilla, Fanon, and Glissant on violence, racial hierarchies, opacity, and sovereignty, these works stand as both protest and testimony. They are a protest against colonial power and a testament to Puerto Rican resilience. My life's work is a dedication to the proposition that resistance and the right to occupy space may one day bring freedom to Puerto Rico.