About

Rematriating Borikén is a multidisciplinary project by Yasmín Hernández, a Brooklyn-born and raised/ Borikén-based artist, writer, and cultural organizer focusing on rematriation and liberation. Conceived within Yasmin’s own lived experience moving to her ancestral womb of Borikén in 2014, it began as a blog sharing her rematriation chronicles then crystallized in May of 2019, in commemoration of her 5th year in Borikén, with the first painting of the series and the Rematriating Borikén Manifesto.  It has since expanded into a greater project documenting the collective journey. Reclaiming the original essence of this archipelago (Puerto Rico), bioluminescence, darkness, & light are metaphors on belonging, sustainability, thriving authentically while transcending (liberating from) colonialism, climate change & displacement.

A painter primarily, Yasmin is developing a portrait series featuring folks on the rematriation journey in the aesthetics of Puerto Rico Trench bioluminescence. The portrait series has grown with the support of a grant from the National Association for Latino Arts & Cultures. Each portrait is informed by video shoots & interviews within “studio sessions” held at CucubaNación, Yasmin’s Mayagüez artspace dedicated to Boricua bioluminescence. Placing individuals in a meditative space of darkness, deliberate lighting, with water/ womb sounds, they reflect on questions, word prompts, around themes including call/ arrival; archipelago/ Diaspora; womb/ homeland; challenges/ growth; darkness/ light. Inserting ourselves in the supposed harsh environment of the abyss where sunlight doesn’t reach, where oxygen is scarce, symbolizes our reclaiming of ancestral lands we are told are uninhabitable, unsustainable by those who hypocritically covet them. Rematriating Borikén celebrates bioluminescent Boricuas rising from the trenches, reclaiming what colonialism has taken.

Long navigating notions of motherland/ otherland, Yasmín Hernández draws aesthetic inspiration from the abyss that spreads between her birthplace and homeland. Researching in Vieques for her 2009 art exhibit honoring activists who ended US Navy maneuvers introduced her to bioluminescence, transformed her vision and aesthetics, and inspired her 2014 move to her ancestral womb.

Arriving to the news of the colonial debt crisis, several years later, in 2017 she was invited to exhibit in the “Puerto Rico Bundle” of Occupy Museums’ Debt Fair installation at The Whitney Biennial, and to present on a solidarity panel in Detroit reflecting on oversight boards. Months later she and her family endured twin hurricanes Irma and María and their aftermath. Images of her East Harlem mural Soldaderas, honoring Julia de Burgos and Frida Kahlo, circulated with various Puerto Rico/ Mexico hurricane/ earthquake relief efforts. Hyperallergic published her account as “An Artist’s Powerful Letter in Post Hurricane Puerto Rico.” Spending four months without electricity, the fireflies of those dark nights reignited her interest in bioluminescence. Her essay “Liberation Lessons in Light” is published in the anthology Voices from Puerto Rico: Post-Hurricane María (Edited by Iris Morales, Red Sugarcane Press, 2019.)

Channeling cucubanos and fireflies, months after María she launched CucubaNación, a painting series lifting light through the darkness of power outages, climate change and colonialism. In 2022, she expanded the project into a storefront community art space dedicated to the liberatory lessons of Boricua bioluminescence. Located in the urban center of Mayagüez, the space is also host to Rematriating Borikén, with its Rematriation Gatherings series, studio sessions, and rematriation interviews informing the art series. The project chronicles the conceptual and physical journey home, and the rematriation practices emerging from the archipelago of Puerto Rico.

Yasmin holds a BFA in Painting from Cornell University. She has served as artist educator with Taller Puertorriqueño in Philadelphia, El Museo del Barrio, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. Committed to art as a healing, liberatory practice, Yasmin has exhibited and offered talks and workshops in art/ community spaces and on campuses across the US and Puerto Rico. She continues this work from her Mayaguez art space, also sharing her art at YasminHernandezArt.com and her journey at RematriatingBoriken.com. She lives with her family in Aguada, en el noroeste de Borikén.