The Artists Representing Puerto Rico After Hurricane Maria Favorite 

Six months before Hurricane Maria wreaked havoc in the Caribbean, a group of Puerto Rican artists were invited to participate in a residency program in Miami by local art organizations. The artists were offered abandoned storefronts-turned-studios at a historic downtown mall, where they’d exhibit their work during Miami Art Week in December to engage an art world that often overlooks the island territory. When Maria struck and knocked the entire island offline, Puerto Rico was suddenly on everyone’s radar. And the residency, Focus on Puerto Rico, became more vital and more timely than ever.

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On the work of Daniel Bejar:

My experience with Hurricane Maria came only through news reports, images, and videos of the aftermath and response that were circulating online. I had family that had to leave the island, but thankfully no one was seriously injured.

The work was a continuation of my project Rec-elections, which considers and critiques the weaponization of nostalgia and the American myth deployed within presidential campaign advertising.

I appropriate historical presidential campaign posters and slogans and re-insert them back into the current political landscape. A few of the works from the project touch on the political relationship between the United States federal government and the unincorporated territory of Puerto Rico.