Navigating Colonial Histories: A Conversation with Edra Soto
“Screenhouse” (2020-2021) sculpture at Boeing Gallery North, Millennium Park. Photo credit: Georgia Ruth Hampton.
Chicago-based, Puerto Rican interdisciplinary artist Edra Soto’s work is about bringing people together. Through sharing experiences and questioning histories, Soto invites us to reimagine and meet between worlds. The way one feels around Soto’s work is something quite special, that very same feeling of community gets activated through her work by incorporating food, elements of memory and place such as tiny viewfinders, while also creating spaces for joy.
With her architectural interventions and sculptural work, and what she calls “site-responsive artwork,” Soto also suggests looking back to our colonial histories around ideas of territories, “Graft” and “Screenhouse” are two such examples. These particular interventions talk about post-war architecture in the Caribbean, particularly houses in Puerto Rico with “rejas” (iron screens) that have become ubiquitous in our quotidian lifestyles on the island, especially for those of us born and raised there. In the past, these rejas served as protection devices and have become characteristic of a decorative aesthetic for the island’s visual culture. However, they also carry exploitative Antillean histories which we may not be aware of due to our colonial condition.
These ideas around memory and the in-betweenness of the artist’s geographical relationship with Puerto Rico and the United States can adapt to different communities the same way her work “Graft” is placed in a building. Soto invites the public to engage with dialogues around communities and environments that offer space for empathy and generosity within an educational framework which complements her work and proposes the following question: what can we learn and unlearn from our past and present histories and in which way this informs our future? Another example that refers to this and practically offers a space for unlearning our histories could be her work “Tropicalamerican,” which consists of four redesigned flags—the American, the Puerto Rican, and, two versions of the city of Chicago's flag. This work addresses plantations in the Caribbean as a result of agricultural exploitation to produce crops such as coffee, plantain, and sugar cane, among others. But the creation of the “Tropicalamerican” flags with green tropical leaves in the form of geometric patterns also reflects on traditional quilting techniques used to make hats, rugs, and island souvenirs in the Caribbean. Beyond just a reflection, it is a representation of a clear example of the disparities between the United States and Puerto Rico, a complicated colonial relationship that remains clearly unresolved for some.
Natalia Viera-Salgado (NVS): You have been making work around architecture found in the Caribbean for a while now and also doing interventions in places that do not look like the Caribbean, we can see it in your works “Graft,” “Manual Graft,” and “Screenhouse” What is the intention on doing an intervention in an institution or building that does not possess these qualities or aesthetics? Can you also talk about the meaning of the name “Graft” in the work?
Edra Soto (ES): “GRAFT” is an ongoing project representative of vernacular architectural interventions that take the form of immersive installations and accompanying publications. Citing structures known as quiebrasoles and rejas found predominantly in Puerto Rico, “GRAFT” physically interconnects this existing architecture to a site specific place while conceptually representing an imaginary transplant or migratory gesture. “Manual GRAFT" arrives to viewers in performative form and “Screenhouse” is a self-standing version that responds to the build environment conceptually and materially.
Detail of viewfinder GRAFT at Chicago Cultural Center. Image courtesy of the Artist.
Detail of viewfinder GRAFT at Chicago Cultural Center. Image courtesy of Jeanne Donegan.
NVS: These works are clearly inspired in 1950’s houses from gated and non-gated communities in the island and vernacular art from Puerto Rico. What can architecture and art teach us about our colonial histories? It almost feels like it works as an accomplice or as a registered document of our colonial past.
ES: I kept thinking about populous knowledge. What do we know about the places we live? What kind of historic and cultural value they have and why we didn’t learn that during our formative years. So to me, it’s a debate between historic colonial architecture versus residential architecture. Professor Jorge Ortiz Colom’s monograph, The African Influence in the Design Build Edification of Puerto Rico, states that criollo architecture, which incorporates quiebrasoles and rejas, originated from sub-Saharan Africa through the population brought to Puerto Rico as slaves to work on plantations during the rise of colonization. He argues that this influence is largely overlooked by historians due to the impression that, “Africans could not transplant their ancestral ways of life under the inhumane conditions of their transfer, and the lack of freedom in their new home.” It was previously thought that this decorative architecture was an amalgamation of European features that had undergone a topicalization through the Western lens. Due to the growing commercial sugar trade between the U.S. and Puerto Rico in the late 19th century the “style” of criolla architecture was rampantly appropriated in the Southern U.S. and according to Ortiz-Colom sometimes even purchased outright as entire homes and relocated to the U.S.
NVS: Your work “OPEN 24 HOURS” started from an interest in knowing more about the prevalence of empty bottles found on your daily walks in your neighborhood in Chicago’s Garfield Park, can you give context to this project and what did it reveal from this community specifically? Do you think that it can be adapted to any social or cultural context?
ES: “OPEN 24 HOURS” is a response to the littering of bottles in my neighborhood, East Garfield Park, and how it relates to the historic connection between African Americans and cognac through its genesis in the 1930s to contemporary repercussions instigated by hip-hop and rap culture. Through this project, alcohol glass bottle archives present archaeological evidence of my surroundings and how the refuse material coincides to a history of affiliation as a sign of democracy and acceptance. The visualization of the vast amounts of refuse also serves as a reflection on the complex role of alcohol in our society.
“Cognac’s relationship with African American consumers started later, when black soldiers stationed in southwest France were introduced to it during both world wars. The connection between cognac producers and black consumers was likely bolstered by the arrival of black artists and musicians. France appreciated these distinctive art forms before the U.S. did, continuing a French tradition dating back to Alexis de Tocqueville of understanding aspects of American culture better than Americans did. For African Americans, the elegant cognac of a country that celebrated their culture instead of marginalizing it must have tasted sweet ... During the 1990s, cognac sales were slow, and the industry was battling an image populated by fusty geriatrics. Then references to cognac began surfacing in rap lyrics, a phenomenon that peaked in 2001 with Busta Rhymes and P. Diddy’s hit “Pass the Courvoisier,” causing sales of the brand to jump 30 percent. During the next five years, other rappers teamed up with brands, and increased overall sales of cognac in the U.S. by a similar percentage, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States.”
–Reid Mitenbuler, author of Bourbon Empire: The Past and Future of America’s Whiskey
Open 24 Hours at Albright Knox-Northland. Image courtesy of Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York. Photo credit: Brenda Bieger
Open 24 Hours at The Momentary, Crystal Bridges. Photo credit: Russell Bloodworth Photography
NVS: I want to talk about your work “Happy Hour” at Casa Rosada, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil which includes a happy hour, dance party and a collaboration with DJ Afrodjia. Can you talk about the initial idea of this work and how this collaboration started?
ES: Back in 2015, I did the first version of the Happy Hour project in collaboration with Antiquarian, now Compound Yellow, a project space in Chicago run by Laura Shaffer. The Antiquarian was a beautiful store front with a bar set by the entrance. Assessing the bar and the possibilities of working on that site gave me the idea for the happy hour event. I never created a physical space or installation for it. All my “food activations” have been a direct response to the type of events space and audience they address. For the first Happy Hour, I also bought a collection of records from my childhood in Puerto Rico, and played them during the event. Nostalgia and memory are the archive examined and recreated for a sensorial experience. At the time, I was already working with food-hybrids like “The Wedding Cake Project,” a recreation of the wedding cake that my mother made for my wedding with my husband Dan in 2002. The motivations of recreating the cake were related to the symptoms of angst that the experience left. I recreated the cake and placed it at alternative art venues for it to be consumed as an act of celebration, to compensate for the heartache the original cake brought to my life at that moment. This cake is a pineapple - upside down cake that could easily be a part of the various foods represented in Happy Hour, but at the time, I was not thinking of the cultural and socio-political content of food at that time. Nowadays, we have more sources of information devoted to food than ever. At some point, it occurred to me that the food that Puerto Ricans consume and have adopted as part of their culture is equally problematic and fascinating at the same time. This project allows me to explore these issues and engage in collaboration. Sadie Woods, aka Afrodjia, comes to the picture as one of my guest artists, for the various projects I curated for “Open 24 Hours” at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago for the Commons. I offer a platform for projects like Sadie’s, titled “Social Music”, to highlight intellectual discourse within the exhibition’s space.
NVS: Thinking about the pandemic and understanding how important the participatory and community aspect is in your work, how do you think that spaces can be activated? As a co-director and co-founder of THE FRANKLIN, have you thought about other ways of creating programs or exhibitions? Do you think that social and community projects will have a transformation?
ES: Within weeks of the pandemic, and because of my interest in forms of engagement, I organized a Live community activation inspired by COVIDtv, a media network that organizes longform programming for IG Live. I was invited to do a live segment with them around the end of March. I teamed with my husband to present a tour of our art collection. I had such a wonderful experience that I felt motivated to organize a day long event. The event was a @thefranklinoutdoor @covidtv takeover. I brought 25 artists and gave them 30 minutes each to go Live. I think what was so remarkable about this moment was the community that I got to involve in the takeover. Most of the artists are represented in our collection, and in their own right, they are quite accomplished and beloved in Chicago. I opened the event at 9am with a morning walk - just to set the tone and welcome attendees - and my husband Dan Sullivan closed the event at 10:30pm with a “Tiny Studio Concert”. Dan is a long time musician besides being a designer and fabricator. He has a music studio in our house and he really brought it that night. I keep getting emails and messages from artists and people of the community letting me know how much they enjoyed the experience and that it truly felt like a concert for solidarity. My motivations came from a place of generosity and hope for bringing some joy to all. And yes, I think things will continue to evolve, but if we have the opportunity to be well again, all together, we will take it.
Born in Puerto Rico, Edra Soto is an interdisciplinary artist, and co-director of the outdoor project space THE FRANKLIN. Recent venues presenting Soto’s work include Crystal Bridges and The Momentary, Bentonville, AR, Albright-Knox Northland, Buffalo, NY; Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL; Smart Museum, Chicago, IL; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS; Pérez Art Museum Miami, FL; and Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, IL. This fall, Soto completed the public art commission titled “Screenhouse” for a two-year exhibition at Millennium Park, Chicago, IL. Soto has attended residency programs at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Beta-Local, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Residency, Headlands Center for the Arts, Project Row Houses, Art Omi, and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center Arts/Industry. Soto was awarded the Efroymson Contemporary Arts Fellowship, an Illinois Arts Council Agency Fellowship, and a 3Arts Foundation residency fellowship to Montalvo Arts Center. Most recently, she was the award winner of the inaugural Foundwork Artist Prize. Soto’s work has been included in three exhibitions supported by the MacArthur Foundation’s International Connections Fund: A Chicago / Puerto Rico exhibition at Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico; a Chicago / Cuba exhibition at the Smart Museum (Illinois) and a Chicago / Brazil exchange to take place in Salvador, Brazil in 2020. Soto holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree from Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Diseño de Puerto Rico. She is a Lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Natalia Viera Salgado is a Puerto Rican independent curator and curatorial consultant based in New York City and Puerto Rico. She is also the co-founder of :Pública Espacio Cultural, an independent art space in Alto del Cabro, Santurce. Her art historical research focuses on contemporary art concerning decolonial practices, architecture, social and environmental justice, and new media with a keen interest in hybrid and interdisciplinary projects. She has worked at the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture for the 4th Poly/Graphic Triennial Latin America and the Caribbean, collaborated with design studio División de Diseño(Puerto Rico), worked at El Museo de Barrio (New York, NY), Art in General (Brooklyn, New York), Socrates Sculpture Park (Queens, New York) and The Nathan Cummings Foundation (New York) among other institutions. Viera is a founding member of Colectivo se habla español, a collective working on artistic and social projects that expand the limits of language while addressing migration, identity, human rights, and memory. Viera is currently the Curatorial Resident at the Abrons Arts Center as part of LA RESIDENCIA.