Art & Activism in Puerto Rico: Valor y Cambio

“Decolonial Joy”

Frances Negrón-Muntaner (English and Comparative Literature, Columbia)

Frances Negrón-Muntaner M.A. in Visual Anthropology and Fine Arts, Temple; Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, Rutgers. Frances Negrón-Muntaner is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, and scholar. She is the recipient of Ford, Truman, Scripps Howard, Rockefeller, and Pew fellowships as well as a Social Science Research Council and Andy Warhol Foundation grants. She is the editor of several books, including Puerto Rican Jam: Rethinking Nationalism and Colonialism; None of the Above: Puerto Ricans in the Global Era, and Sovereign Acts. She is the author of Anatomy of a Smile and Other Poems and Boricua Pop: Puerto Ricans and the Latinization of American Culture (winner, 2004 CHOICE Award). Among Negrón-Muntaner’s films are AIDS in the Barrio, Brincando el charco: Portrait of a Puerto Rican, and War in Guam. She is currently completing various documentaries, including on the intersection of Latino and LGTB social movements, and writing an intellectual biography on Arthur Schomburg. Negrón-Muntaner is also a founding board member and past chair of NALIP, the National Association of Latino Independent Producers, and a co-founder of Columbia University’s Latino Arts and Activist archive. In 2005, she was named as 1 of “100 Most Influential Hispanics” by Hispanic Business magazine, and in 2008, the United Nations’ Rapid Response Media Mechanism recognized her as a “global expert.” She is also the recipient of El Diario/La Prensa’s annual “Distinguished Women Award” (2010) and Columbia University’s “Most Distinguished Faulty Award” (2012). She directs Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race there.

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“Landscape for Change: Socioeconomic Context after María”

Sarabel Santos-Negrón (Artist, Educator and Museum Professional)

Sarabel Santos-Negrón is a multidisciplinary artist, educator and museum professional. Her work is informed by the experience and memory of the social-environmental and political-economic aspects reflected in the landscape of the Island of Puerto Rico. Using drawing and its expanded field as a starting point, she explores ways of referring to social values, natural resources, organic forms and atmospheric phenomena pertinent to her birth place. The work is created with found materials such as high-consumption industrial supplies, paper, sound, photographs, and mixed media, among others.

Santos-Negrón earned an MFA in Studio Art from Maryland Institute College or Art, Baltimore; an MAE in Museum Studies from Caribbean University, Puerto Rico; a BFA in Painting and Art History from the University of Puerto Rico; Art History studies from Fundación Ortega y Gasset, Toledo, Spain.

Her work has been exhibited in Baltimore, Cincinnati, Chicago, Kentucky, Miami, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, London, México, and Puerto Rico. She has worked as a visual arts professor, independent curator for special projects and is currently the director of the Museo de Arte de Bayamón in Puerto Rico.