Ten Years In

Our ten-year anniversary in Borikén happened a few days ago. It is a milestone that resounds with great pride, purpose and joy. I know what we’ve lived, what we’ve endured and overcome to be here, to stay. It is a struggle felt on a collective scale. The witnessing of folks, families that go, that come, and go again. There are many sacrifices, but the gifts are beyond words. I am able to measure our growth by the development of our children. We left in 2014 looking for a school where our first son could start kindergarten. He just completed the tenth grade.

These days I am mostly in my cave working on the rematriation portrait series. The first works will debut at CucubaNación, my Mayaguez artspace on June 1^st. In addition to the growth of my babies, who are now tall adolescents, I am also birthing new things. One of the best parts of this tenth anniversary is preparing to step forward sharing not just my own rematriation journey, but other beautiful journeys that I have been privileged to witness and that I have learned from and been expanded by. To create the portraits of this series, I have sat down to interviews with each of the individuals. Mostly in what I call “Studio Sessions” at CucubaNación, where I am able to create the aesthetic effect that mirrors that of the Puerto Rico Trench for a meditation on womb, water, archipelago, darkness. These are the aesthetics I channeled in the Rematriating Borikén Manifesto which inspires the paintings. Responding to questions and word prompts, folks reflect on different lessons from their rematriation journey. Not only am I photographing and recording these conversations in preparation for the paintings, but I get an intimate glimpse into these journeys, documenting and cataloguing what is a Boricua specific, archipelagic rematriation practice unfolding in the collective. I am grateful to the NALAC Fund for the Arts grant that has helped me with the studio sessions equipment and this first phase of the painting series.

Rematriating Borikén, as a project has also had its own share of growth. What began as a blog chronicling my own journey eight years ago, expanded with the manifesto in 2019 and the first painting of the series. Over the years, I have created other paintings and began the interviews. Last year, I hosted a series of Rematriation gatherings at CucubaNacion, my Mayaguez artspace. That is what really helped me to understand the direction the project needed to go and to listen to what needs to be revealed by our collective journeys. I moved to focusing on the one-on-one studio session conversations then the painting series. After Portraits from the Trench opens on June 1^st, this summer we will launch a new monthly rematriation gathering series. The studio session interviews and portrait series will continue beyond this intimate debut. There are many more journeys to capture. More on the featured folks will be shared via this website and the new podcast. Stay tuned for more…

Brooklyn-born and raised, Yasmín Hernández is a visual artist, writer, cultural organizer based in el oeste de Borikén in the archipelago known as Puerto Rico. Her work is rooted in rematriation and liberation practices. Rematriating Borikén is her project lifting the conceptual and physical return to her ancestral homeland. CucubaNación in Mayagüez is Yasmin’s art and community space inspired by Boricua bioluminescence. She shares her art at yasminhernandezart.com and chronicles the journey home at rematriatingboriken.com .