In the Studio: Tropical is Political – nibia pastrana santiago 

nibia pastrana santiago, a Puerto Rican artist, will be in conversation with writer and independent curator Nicole Smythe-Johnson. This program will be held in conjunction with our current exhibition, Tropical Is Political: Caribbean Art Under the Visitor Economy Regime. pastrana santiago will discuss her work in the exhibition along with her flag currently on view as part of our Flag series as it relates to her artistic practice.

Join us live on Instagram from your cell phone, or watch on YouTube after, for a series of remote visits to artists' studios to bring Americas Society's Visual Arts public programs to your home. Check out the series playlist.

About the artist

Based in San Juan and trained in dance and improvisation, nibia pastrana santiago (b. Caguas, Puerto Rico, 1987) develops site-specific “choreographic events” to experiment with time, fiction, and notions of territory. Her work has been supported by the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña and the Fundación Puertorriqueña de las Humanidades. She is co-editor, along with dance scholar Susan Homar, of the upcoming book Habitar lo Imposible: Danza y experimentación en Puerto Rico (to be published in 2022). Currently, pastrana santiago is co-director at Beta-Local, a non-profit organization dedicated to support artists in Puerto Rico. From 2017 to 2021, pastrana santiago also served as the Dance Program Academic Coordinator at Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, the first of its kind in Puerto Rico. During the 2019 Whitney Biennial, she presented her durational performance: indisposed objects, suspended inaugurations or inevitable endings for an almost dance. In 2020, de Appel (Amsterdam) commissioned her most recent video work: some, some efforts, some conceivable efforts and her work is part of the exhibition Choreopolitics: Brendan Fernandes & nibia pastrana santiago at MASS MoCa. pastrana santiago holds an MFA in Dance with a Minor in Latina/o Studies from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and a Post-Masters in Performance and Scenography Studies from a.pass, Belgium. She has performed and collaborated in works by Miguel Gutiérrez, DD Dorvillier, and Jennifer Monson’s /iLAND. pastrana santiago is a 2020-2022 fellow of the Puerto Rican Arts Initiative, supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Northwestern University, and University of Texas, Austin.

About the guest speaker

Nicole Smythe-Johnson is a writer and independent curator from Kingston, Jamaica. She is currently a PhD candidate in the department of art and art history at the University of Texas at Austin. Most recently, she was on the curatorial team for the 2022 Kingston Biennial and she worked on John Dunkley: Neither Day nor Night at the Perez Art Museum in Miami and the Folk Art Museum in New York, which formed the basis of her doctoral research. She was also editor of Caribbean Quarterly, the University of the West Indies’ flagship journal of culture and has written for a number of magazines and journals including Terremoto, Flash Art and the Small Axe project's sx visualities.

Visit the Americas Society Visual Arts YouTube Channel for recordings of In the Studio Series and other previous events.

Follow the conversation on Instagram: #IntheStudioAS | @americassociety.visualarts

More digital content from Visual Arts at Americas Society:

• Check out the current exhibition Tropical Is Political: Caribbean Art Under the Visitor Economy Regime.
• Check out the current iteration of our Flag Series: nibia pastrana santiago – YOUR ISLAND HERE.
• Read about the previous exhibition Geles Cabrera: Museo Escultórico.
• Read the exhibition catalogue for This Must Be the Place: Latin American Artists in New York, 1965–1975.
• Watch videos of recent events:
  • Geles Cabrera: Museo Escultórico
  • Young Filmmakers in New York: Collective Visions Screening
  • This Must Be The Place: An Oral History Book Launch
  • This Must Be the Place: Latin American Artists in New York, 1965–1975
  • Terence Gower: The Good Neighbor