The Katherine E. Nash Gallery at the University of Minnesota, in association with Hidrante, San Juan, is proud to present Vaivén: 21st-Century Art of Puerto Rico and Its Diaspora, a multidisciplinary exhibition spanning twenty-five years of Puerto Rican artistic production from forty-three artists working in Puerto Rico and its U.S. diaspora. Derived from Spanish for “back-and-forth movement,” vaivén is most associated with the supposed ease at which Puerto Ricans migrate between the United States and Puerto Rico. Beyond the comings and goings of travel, this word names decades of physical and cultural ebb and flow that have resulted in more persons of Puerto Rican descent living across the fifty United States than in Puerto Rico itself. In turn, to be Puerto Rican is to be inextricably linked to diaspora, Black and Caribbean epistemologies, and a constant reimagining of home and belonging.
By tracing conceptual and aesthetic intersections across a range of approaches to image- and mark-making, sculpture and installation, and sound and video, artists explore the hybridity of memory, language, and place as they relate to acts of witnessing, resistance, and connection. Works in the exhibition bear witness to a quarter century of cultural, political, and migratory oscillations, while challenging dominant cultural narratives of “island” post-disaster resiliency versus “mainland” diasporic neither-here-nor-there identity. Rather than following a linear trajectory, the exhibition documents Puerto Rican artistic production across time and place to challenge the geographic and cultural authenticity, racialization, and classism that have shaped which voices define Puerto Rican contemporary art, and which continue to be devalued.
Artists in the exhibition include Candida Alvarez, Genesis Báez, Sula Bermudez-Silverman, Ricardo Cabret, Melissa Calderón, Rodríguez Calero, Nayda Collazo-Llorens, Gisela Colón, Cristina Córdova, David Antonio Cruz, Maritza Dávila-Irizarry, Larissa De Jesús Negrón, Ada del Pilar Ortiz, Estrella Esquilín, Mónica Félix, Cándida González, GeoVanna Gonzalez, Ivelisse Jiménez, Juanita Lanzo, Natalia Lassalle-Morillo, Olivia Levins Holden, Ricardo Levins Morales, Nora Maité Nieves, Héctor Méndez Caratini, Colectivo Moriviví, Javier Orfón, Josué Pellot, Joey Quiñones, Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz, Elizabeth Robles, Amber Robles-Gordon, Jezabeth Roca González, Shellyne Rodriguez, Luis Rodríguez Rosario, Raúl Romero, G. Rosa-Rey, Juan Sánchez, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, Amarise Deán Santo, Edra Soto, Bibiana Suárez, Nitza Tufiño, and William Villalongo.
Related Events
Save the date for upcoming panel discussions, film screenings, and artist talks:
Saturday, September 13
Program & Reception with performances by BORIKEN Cultural Center
6:00 - 9:00 pm, Regis Center for Art
405 21st Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455
RSVP here.
Wednesday, October 8, 2025
Becoming SotaRicans
4:00-6:00 pm, Liberal Arts Engagement Hub, Rm 120 Pillsbury Hall
310 Pillsbury Dr. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455
Friday, October 24, 2025
Algarabía: A Conversation with Roque Raquel Salas Rivera
6:00-7:00 pm, InFlux Space E110, Regis Center for Art
405 21st Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455
Saturday, November 15, 2025
BOMBA: A Film by Jasmira Colón
2:00-3:30 pm, InFlux Space E110, Regis Center for Art
405 21st Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455
Tuesday, November 25, 2025
Place-Keepers: Boricua Community Led Muralism
5:00-6:15 pm CDT, Online event
Register here.
Exhibition Catalogue
Vaivén: 21st-Century Art of Puerto Rico and Its Diaspora represents the first bilingual English and Spanish catalogue published by the Katherine E. Nash Gallery and is distributed by University of Minnesota Press. This fully illustrated volume features contributions from Arlene Dávila, Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez, Teréz Iacovino, José López Serra, María Elena Ortiz, Carlos Ortiz Burgos, and Monica Uszerowicz. Purchase through University of Minnesota Press: upress.umn.edu.