TLP: Sofía, congratulations on being the winner of our latest Curatorial Open Call! Can you share a bit about your most recent curatorial involvements in NYC and beyond?

SRdR: Thank you and the TLP team for trusting my vision and giving me this great opportunity to continue expanding my practice. My most recent curatorial project in NYC was titled Self-Organize at Bronx Art Space. The exhibition gathered artists from diverse geographical backgrounds living in NYC or that had lived here, and addressing issues of self-preservation and self-determination in a post-Hurricane María Puerto Rico. This was also a year after Trump’s election. Following this project, and on a full scholarship, I moved to Spain to pursue a Master’s degree in the Arts and continued working on independent projects. I was the guest curator for Mandela a 100 Años de su Nacimiento an exhibition in Havana, Cuba and curated two iterations of Localidad Alterna at MECA Art Fair in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Localidad Alterna is an ongoing curatorial project that focuses on researching and representing Latin American, Caribbean, and Puerto Rican emerging artists inland and its diaspora. Midway through COVID-19’s confinement, a group of fellow Puerto Rican artists and myself co-founded Banasta Artist Residency with the intention to connect the diaspora.

I’ve also been involved with a grassroots community organization in Culebra, Puerto Rico called Mujeres de Islas, in their work with the islands’ food sovereignty, art and culinary experiences, and initiatives for solar energy, compost, and agricultural driven economy. 

TLP: Tell us about your forthcoming exhibition with TLP.

SRdR: The exhibition will highlight artists who move us to appreciate the interrelatedness of our everyday lives and the environment. Their works call us to urgent issues that include extractive industries, environmental racism, climate change and colonial settlement. Through a reevaluation of contemporary living, ancestral, intergenerational, and community knowledge, they are calling viewers to action, or at least to reflect and review while investigating their collective understanding of the importance of visual art in current ecological discourse.

Together the artists offer us a glimpse at safekeeping our connection to land and nature. In this exhibition, conceived as a constellation of diverse perspectives and material approaches, we’re confronted to ponder what forms of ecological caring we can conceive of to preserve our future. 

TLP: How does this project relate to your overall practice as an independent curator, artist, and educator? 

SRdR: A common thread in my work is the examination of planetary solidarity, ecology, healing, settler colonialism, land rights and preservation and their connection to our identities and behaviors in the intersections of ancestral healing, visual art, and the environment. I’ve always worked in a transdisciplinary fashion, interweaving my fine arts foundation with curation and education. I create from a place of curiosity, accessibility, visibility, and support, always thinking about the audiences and artists involved.

My focus is in generating programs that consider the diverse communities/voices that inhabit the Caribbean, North, Central, and South Americas—and making their diasporas visible so as to develop an academic-artistic foothold for these narratives.