Jezabeth Roca González, La fábula de Luisa, 2021. two-channel video installation. 1:48 min. Courtesy of the artist
Constant Storm: Art from Puerto Rico and the Diaspora
September 24 – December 4, 2021
USF Contemporary Art Museum + Online
HOURS: Monday-Friday 10am – 5pm; Thursday 10am–8pm; Saturday 1-4pm; Closed Sundays and USF Holidays (November 11, 25, 26, 27). Visitors to the museum are expected to wear masks and practice social distancing.
Constant Storm: Art From Puerto Rico and the Diaspora will gather, display, record, and conceptualize artistic responses to Hurricane Maria by artists from Puerto Rico and the diaspora. Through artworks and their narratives and socially engaged initiatives, voices from the island and Puerto Rican communities in New York and Florida will materialize a synoptic view of Puerto Rico’s fragile recovery as part of an evolving, 121-year-old historical crisis.
Participating artists include: Rogelio Báez Vega, Sofía Gallisá Muriente, Jorge González Santos, Karlo Andrei Ibarra, Ivelisse Jiménez, Natalia Lassalle-Morillo, Miguel Luciano, SkittLeZ-Ortiz, Angel Otero, Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz, Gabriel Ramos, Jezabeth Roca González, Gamaliel Rodríguez, Yiyo Tirado Rivera.
Curated by Christian Viveros-Fauné, CAM Curator at Large, and Noel Smith, Former Deputy Director and Curator of Latin American and Caribbean Art: organized by USF Contemporary Art Museum
ONLINE EXHIBITION
Exhibition Home // Curatorial Essay | Ensayo Curatorial // Acknowledgements and Foreword | Agradecimientos y Prólogo // Rogelio Báez Vega (EN) | Rogelio Báez Vega (ES) // Jorge González Santos (EN) | Jorge González Santos (ES) // Karlo Andrei Ibarra (EN) | Karlo Andrei Ibarra (ES) // Ivelisse Jiménez (EN) | Ivelisse Jiménez (ES) // Miguel Luciano (EN) | Miguel Luciano (ES) // Natalia Lassalle-Morillo & Sofía Gallisá Muriente (EN) | Natalia Lassalle-Morillo & Sofía Gallisá Muriente (ES) // Angel Otero (EN) | Angel Otero (ES) // Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz (EN) | Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz (ES) // Gabriel Ramos (EN) | Gabriel Ramos (ES) // Jezabeth Roca González (EN) | Jezabeth Roca González (ES) // Gamaliel Rodríguez (EN) | Gamaliel Rodríguez (ES) // Yiyo Tirado Rivera (EN) | Yiyo Tirado Rivera (ES)
Jezabeth Roca González
Jezabeth Roca González hails from Añasco, a small town in rural, western Puerto Rico that they call “an island within an island.” González often uses their grandparents’ domestic space as a center for videos and installations, sometimes employing soil, plants, and agricultural products as part of their artwork. While their family has remained in Puerto Rico, González is part of the diaspora, living between Añasco and the United States. They collaborate with family through stories and actions to explore that duality as well as issues of racism, land migration, the enduring effects of colonialism, and how rapid change threatens family life. The video La fabula de Luisa focuses on González’s grandmother, “Abuela Luisa.” A fabula, or fable, carries a moral lesson or advice, but it can also generate legends that narrate the actions of gods or heroes of antiquity. In the case of Abuela Luisa, her stories elevate the experience of an extraordinary woman as she navigates the twists and turns of her own life.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Jezabeth Roca González (b. 1988)
Lives and works between la diaspora and Añasco, Puerto Rico.
Jezabeth Roca González is a multidisciplinary maker who uses video, performance, photography, land, and live plants through installation. González examines intimacy, family stories and how we carry the land's ongoing colonial status with the United States through personal perspective and the dualities of the everyday. Their work has been shown in exhibitions at Sulfur Studios (Savannah, GA); The Front (San Ysidro, CA); Pana Projects (Aguadilla, Puerto Rico); King Street Projects (Long Beach, NY); and Practice Gallery (Philadelphia, PA). Artist residencies include the Below Grand Deep Field Residency (NYC); Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (Omaha, Nebraska); and FAC (Feminist Art Collective) Artscape (Toronto, ON). They are recipient of a Dedalus MFA Fellowship award in Painting and Sculpture (NYC).
Constant Storm: Art from Puerto Rico and the Diaspora is made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Arts and Culture and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture, and supported by the Tampa Bay Rays and the Tampa Bay Rowdies. The symposium Bregando with Disasters: Post Hurricane Maria Realities and Resiliencies is supported by a Humanities Centers Grant from Florida Humanities. The USF Contemporary Art Museum is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.
