¡Batey Boricua! Creamos Nuestro Espacio | We Create Our Space September 3, 2026–February 7, 2027

The batey was the central gathering space for the Taíno, the indigenous peoples who lived in Puerto Rico freely before Spanish colonization. Their ancestral name for the Caribbean island was Borikén. In the batey, the Taíno hosted sacred ceremonies, told stories, played games, and made space for dialogue. Contemporary communities on island and in the diaspora have reimagined the batey to convene for education, performance, and protest. Being Boricua can mean making a home in the in-betweens: dreaming or fantasizing about permanence; inhabiting many spaces and never quite feeling settled. While we grapple with the weight of a multi-generational grief about not yet having a free, independent nation, we face the dissonance of not being Puerto Rican enough for family on the archipelago or American enough in our own neighborhood. What if true power lies in the quiet and bold courage to exist despite more than 500 years of colonization?

Through a wide range of creative mediums, Puerto Rican artists with a connection to Connecticut invite the public into their inner worlds through works that embody orishas, ancestors, memories, histories, myth-making, place mapping, and the future shaped by human hands.

Exhibiting Artists: Imna Arroyo, Andres Chaparro, JOËL Cintrón, Tiana Correa, Luis Cotto, Eland Malua Cruz, Taína Cruz, Pablo Delano, Kwamé Azure Gomez, Jaryana Herrera, JÚGO, Miguel José Matos, Daniel Mena, Mercury, Victor Pacheco, Ricardo Rivas, G. Rosa-Rey, and Chris Roque

Curated by: Jasmin Agosto