Entre Puerto Rico y Richmond
Bridging Histories of Resistance
Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University
September 12, 2020—January 31, 2021
Entre Puerto Rico y Richmond: Bridging Stories of Resistance is a three-part mixed-media installation honoring a lineage of resistance against U.S. colonialism.
The exhibit explores the historical concept of “commonwealth,” its legacy, and its connection to exploitation and colonialism. In the case of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, this term refers to the colonial status of the island. Although geographically distant, Puerto Rico and Richmond, VA share histories of racism, colonial capitalism, and exploitation through the tobacco industry.
Altares of Resistance, 2020
Alicia Díaz in collaboration with Luis Vasquez La Roche
Design — Luis Vasquez La Roche
Photos and offerings by project collaborators
commonwealth colony, 2020
Alicia Díaz in collaboration with Bryan Castro
Copy paper, charcoal, watercolor crayon, marker, pen
Design — Bryan Castro
Research Assistant — Luis Vasquez LaRoche
Project Consultant — Esther “Ñequi” González
Title — Steven Casanova (used with permission)
In 1890, Richmond entrepreneur Lewis Ginter's Cigarette Company and four other cigarette manufacturers merged to form The American Tobacco Company (ATC) founded by J.B. Duke (Duke University). When the U.S. occupied Puerto Rico in 1898 as a result of the Spanish American War, it became a “possession of the United States.” That same year, the ATC took over the tobacco industry on the island, pushing the transition from artisanal shops to capitalist factory production. In Richmond, ATC operated factories where both Black and white women worked in segregated facilities.
Watch Film —
Entre Puerto Rico y Richmond: Women in Resistance Shall not be Moved, 2020
Work by Alicia Díaz, co-created with Patricia Herrera, Christine Wyatt, Christina Leoni-Osion, Luis Vasquez La Roche, Héctor “Coco” Barez, Yaraní del Valle, and David Riley
Single channel digital video (color, sound, 17:21 minutes)
Learn more about the film.
Combining biography, poetry, and ritual, this mixed-media installation includes the bilingual dance film Entre Puerto Rico y Richmond: Women in Resistance Shall Not Be Moved; the photomontage commonwealth colony; and sacred offerings Altares of Resistance. Entre Puerto Rico y Richmond: Bridging Stories of Resistance was commissioned for the Commonwealth exhibit curated by the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University; Philadelphia Contemporary; and Beta-Local in Puerto Rico.
Transforming the museum gallery into a sacred space in solidarity with the living and the dead, the photomontage commonwealth colony offers a broad historical context of the colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States and Altares of Resistance honors the many acts of refusal and fugitivity in both Puerto Rico and Richmond. We remember and interweave these local and global histories as acts of commemoration, aiming to problematize the concept of “commonwealth” in the context of massive protests in 2020 in Richmond as well as in Puerto Rico and its diaspora.
Altares of Resistance, 2020
Installation of Entre Puerto Rico y Richmond, 2020
Christine Wyatt and Christina Leoni-Osion in production still from Entre Puerto Rico y Richmond: Women in Resistance Shall not be Moved, 2020. Photo courtesy of the artist and collaborators.
Closeup of commonwealth colony, 2020
Closeup of Altares of Resistance, 2020