‘«Islas adyacentes»: Decolonizando el Mar Caribe desde Puerto Rico’

This podcast accompanies the work Pájaro, cómeme (2022) by artist Beatriz Santiago Muñoz. Hosted by María Montero Sierra, Head of Program of TBA21–Academy, it deals with the role that the Ocean takes in the practices of decolonization in the Caribbean, and how these affect particularly to Puerto Rico, today a non-incorporated territory of the USA, a free associated state with self-government status. Montero Sierra is joined by contributors Reniel Rodríguez Ramos, Doctor of Anthropology at the University of Florida and Professor of the Social Sciences Program of the Universidad de Puerto Rico, who is specialized on Isthmo-Colombian and Transatlantic precolonial connections; and Nicole Cecilia Delgado, poet, translator, and co-founder of the printing workshop La Impresora, as well as author of adjacent islands | islas adyacentes (2022) which gives title to the podcast and encompasses the bodies of work subtropical dry (La Impresora, 2015) and Amoná (artist book, 2013); Delgado is interviewed by Uroyoán Noel, translator to English of islas adyacentes, as well as poet, critic and teacher at the New York University yand Stetson University. Through these voices we discover how the archaeological evidence inscribed in the natural spaces as well as the nomadic writings inspiring the recuperation of indigenous languages are two different strategies with a shared goal: decolonize the Caribbean. Both processes situate the Ocean not just as an atemporal space that links the prehistoric and foundational past of the Caribbean with the current moment, but which broaden the identitarian processes of the region by bringing in an oceanic vision. Credits: Contributors: Reniel Rodríguez Ramos, Nicole Cecilia Delgado & Urayoán Noel Conducted by María Montero Sierra Sound editor: Roberto Bosoms