At a time when museums are being called to confront their role in perpetuating structural racism, Tiznando el País: Visualities and Representations offers a different model: a national and transnational initiative that brings together museums, community organizations, artists, and scholars to rethink the narratives of Afro and Afro-descendant art in Puerto Rico and its diaspora.
From 2023 to 2026, nearly thirty entities in Puerto Rico and US cities with significant Puerto Rican communities are presenting exhibitions, workshops, seminars, and cultural mediation programs rooted in anti-racist and decolonial perspectives. The initiative combines exhibitions of Afro-descendant and diasporic artists with programs such as the Intensive Seminar for Emerging Curators, the audiovisual project GRIOT 2124, and a digital repository that documents and amplifies these practices.
The Puerto Rican Alliance of Museums, which co-leads the project alongside the University of Puerto Rico, has been essential to its development. Its work spans resource management, technical advising, creating training spaces, and supporting projects in historically marginalized regions and communities. This mediation ensures the project moves beyond showcasing artworks to driving structural changes in museum practice, fostering policies of genuine inclusion and participation.
Tiznando el País views art as a tool for memory and justice. From Loíza to the Bronx, its actions seek to dismantle the myth of racial harmony in Puerto Rico and create space for counter-narratives built by and for Afro-descendant communities. More than a temporary program, it offers a roadmap for imagining museums as active agents of social and cultural transformation.
To learn more, visit tiznandoelpais.org.
