Taking Control of Your Own Story

C&AL: What is Corredor Afro and what is the importance of having this space in Loiza?

Marta Moreno Vega: It goes between the professional and the personal. My dad and grandmother were born in Loiza. Throughout my history, I have been bringing my children to Loiza. I was born in El Barrio in Manhattan, New York, so it was very important that my children understood they had roots here in Puerto Rico.

As the director of El Museo del Barrio, I deep dived into learning the history and the traditions, meeting artists, educators, researchers, and understanding the history of Puert Rico. That process developed into a love affair with the island. I like to think of Corredor Afro as a crossroads. The idea is to bridge the pieces of the puzzle that have been distributed around the world because of enslavement and before enslavement, understanding the accomplishments our people have made around the world. Look for example at the documentation that has yet to be fully embraced, let’s say the work of Ivan Van Sertima, They Came Before Columbus (1976). His book shows that there were Africans in the Americas before enslavement. Making those intelligences that keep being marginalized central to the discussion, aesthetic and vocabulary that we use as an African people.

Corredor is a local and international multi use space that will include a gallery, and host silkscreen, mosaic and ceramic workshops; the upstairs will have an artist residency and research residency. It’s a cross section, multidisciplinary and anthropological in terms of its vision, looking at centering an African aesthetic and thought process that is global. How does one do that? The interconnecting of different intelligences and different people with different skills is the way and the core of Corredor Afro.

C&AL: What is the concept of Corredor Afro’s first official collective exhibition beginning at the end of October 2020?

MMV: We had an introductory event, which included an exhibition a year ago so this is technically our second. The theme on this next exhibition, curated by Celso Gonzalez (Puerto Rican muralist), is on centering Blackness. The title of the show is Blackness (NEGRO/A/X Creative Art Justice!). It is calling it, it is not mincing words, this is about African descendancy and you being part of that. The show will represent multi-disciplinary creative processes with artists like Las Nietas de Nonó, Daniel Lind, Celso Gonzáles, Nancy Meléndez, Lisa C Soto, Papo Colo and more. The online opening will include an art performance by Awilda Sterling, and music by the Bomba music group Majestad Negra, founded by Maricruz Rivera Clemente.

C&AL: How is the art situation on the island today? How has the art scene suffered under the COVID-19 pandemic?

MMV: It was difficult before and it’s in a heightened economic strait now with the pandemic and lack of tourism. In Puerto Rico and in the United States museums are letting employees go – and most of them are letting go of their education department. How ignorant the staff and directorship of museums are! Education is at the ground level of anything historical, racial, global, and diverse. Under the pandemic, these education departments, which introduce racial and cultural diversity are now being eliminated. It is like an elastic band discussing cultural inclusion one minute by including education and culture etc., you let go of the band and it goes back to what it was, overt Eurocentric dominance.