I spoke with the Whitney Museum of American Art’s DeMartini Family Curator, Marcela Guerrero, about their recent exhibition “no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria.” Coinciding with the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Maria, the multi-generational exhibition brings together artists from the island and the diaspora to explore the overlapping disasters compounded by Puerto Rico’s ongoing colonial conditions. •••• Image Credit: Installation view of no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art In The Wake Of Hurricane Maria (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, November 23, 2022-April 23, 2023). From left to right: Edra Soto, GRAFT, 2022; Gamaliel Rodríguez, Collapsed Soul, 2020-21; Gabriella Torres-Ferrer, Untitled (Valora tu mentira americana) (Untitled [Value Your American Lie]), 2018. Photograph by Ron Amstutz. ••••

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I spoke with Saskia Lascarez Casanova about her exhibition “Cultural Traditions: The Quinceañera in Cabarrus County” currently on view at The Cabarrus County Museum of History in North Carolina till April 22, 2023. Through oral histories, Saskia explores the intersection of race, gender, class, religion, migration and family to present how the quinceañera has shaped the way that young Latina women identify themselves in American society.

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Image Credit: Installation image of “Cultural Traditions: The Quinceañera in Cabarrus County” (Cabarrus County Museum of History, North Carolina, September 26, 2022—April 22, 2023). Image of purple quinceañera dress on stand. Photograph by Saskia Lascarez Casanova.

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I spoke with Sarita Echavez See about her 2017 book “The Filipino Primitive” which traces stolen Filipino objects in the United States that have served as the foundation of power and knowledge in museums. One level her book is about two very specific museums, but in reality, the points she makes can be applied to any similar museum that considers itself to have an ethnological collection. I was particularly interested in the concept of the imperial museum how a museum reflects subconscious prejudice.

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Image Credit: Display cases E3-E8, Philippine exhibit at the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History, Ann Arbor. Photography by Mark Gjukich.

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