Natalia Viera Salgado is a Puerto Rican curator based in New York City. She is also the founder of :Pública Espacio Cultural, an independent art space in Alto del Cabro, Santurce Puerto Rico. Her art historical research focuses on contemporary art concerning decolonial practices, architecture, social and environmental justice, and new media with a keen interest in hybrid and interdisciplinary projects. She has worked at the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (ICP), El Museo del Barrio, Socrates Sculpture Park, The Nathan Cummings Foundation, and Americas Society. Viera holds a MA in Curatorial Practice from the School of Visual Arts and is currently the Associate Curator at the National Academy of Design and a curatorial Resident at the Abrons Arts Center, under the program La Residencia. Along with Iberia Pérez she is the co-editor of River Rail Puerto Rico Issue, a publication with around 20 contributors which focuses on Puerto Rico’s water issues from a decolonial perspective.
︎: info@nataliavierasalgado.com
︎: info@nataliavierasalgado.com
SELECTED PROJECTS ︎︎︎
Natalia Lassalle-Morillo
En Parábola/ Conversations
on Tragedy
Part I
Exhibition
Dates: March 14 – June 23, 2024
Amant Foundation
Co-devised and co-authored in collaboration with:
Erica Ballester
Nina Lucía Rodríguez
Raquel Rodríguez
Emma Suárez-Báez
Natalia Lassalle-Morillo’s practice develops across localities and narratives, merging theatrical performance, experimental film, and participatory research. Bringing theater-based methodologies into the camera, she rehearses an alternative historiography that revises collective relationships to the past and simultaneously foregrounds the creation of new mythologies and fictions. In En Parábola/Conversations on Tragedy, Natalia reassembles the Greek myth Antigone in collaboration with a cast of non-professional actors who reside in Puerto Rico and in New York City’s Puerto Rican diasporic community. Developed through a multi-year process of collaborative theatrical rehearsal and experimental filmmaking, the work emerged through the cast’s revising, re-writing, and performing of the myth of Antigone inspired by their lived and inherited experiences of migration and belonging.
Taking the form of a multichannel film installation and a live performance series, En Parábola seeks to connect these communities after decades of geographical fragmentation, colonial erasure, dispossession, and cumulative environmental, economic, and political tragedies. This exhibition presents the first chapter of En Parábola, a multichannel film that chronicles the New York City–based cast’s reimagining of the myth of Antigone from their own perspectives. Commissioned after an Artist Research Residency at Amant in 2022, the film weaves together fictional and non-fictional narratives, layering documentation of the rehearsal process with behind-the-scenes footage and staged reenactments co-authored and performed by the cast.
Inspired by the original discourse of dramatic tragedy as a forum for communal catharsis, Parts I and II of En Parábola use theater and rehearsal as a platform through which to bring two casts—one based in New York City, the other in Puerto Rico—together. Natalia and her collaborators deconstruct the Greek dramatic structure, using it as a creative device to explore the complexities of the Puerto Rican diasporic experience and the interconnected challenges faced by diverse migratory journeys. Together, they imagine a future for the play’s mythological characters wherein they survive the tragedy—a future that aligns with a Puerto Rican post-disaster imaginary in which new definitions of sovereignty and freedom are possible.
Through participatory efforts to reshape collective memory, En Parábola proposes theatrical rehearsal as a site of speculation and reunion, where Puerto Ricans can revise, unlearn, experiment, and build narratives, woven from their lived experiences. Re-envisioning sovereignty as an affective citizenship that exists beyond geographical boundaries, this project is fundamentally an invitation to exercise our right to imagination and the potentialities of fantasy and fiction.
En Parábola is part of Rituals of Speaking, a film-led series exploring how artists represent the voices of others through collective storytelling. All programs are presented and commissioned by Amant with additional support from a Mellon Foundation fellowship granted by the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, in collaboration with Princeton University. With additional curatorial guidance from Natalia Viera Salgado.
Installation shots by New document
Natalia Lassalle-Morillo
En Parábola/ Conversations
on Tragedy
Part I
Exhibition
Dates: March 14 – June 23, 2024
Amant Foundation
Co-devised and co-authored in collaboration with:
Erica Ballester
Nina Lucía Rodríguez
Raquel Rodríguez
Emma Suárez-Báez
Natalia Lassalle-Morillo’s practice develops across localities and narratives, merging theatrical performance, experimental film, and participatory research. Bringing theater-based methodologies into the camera, she rehearses an alternative historiography that revises collective relationships to the past and simultaneously foregrounds the creation of new mythologies and fictions. In En Parábola/Conversations on Tragedy, Natalia reassembles the Greek myth Antigone in collaboration with a cast of non-professional actors who reside in Puerto Rico and in New York City’s Puerto Rican diasporic community. Developed through a multi-year process of collaborative theatrical rehearsal and experimental filmmaking, the work emerged through the cast’s revising, re-writing, and performing of the myth of Antigone inspired by their lived and inherited experiences of migration and belonging.
Taking the form of a multichannel film installation and a live performance series, En Parábola seeks to connect these communities after decades of geographical fragmentation, colonial erasure, dispossession, and cumulative environmental, economic, and political tragedies. This exhibition presents the first chapter of En Parábola, a multichannel film that chronicles the New York City–based cast’s reimagining of the myth of Antigone from their own perspectives. Commissioned after an Artist Research Residency at Amant in 2022, the film weaves together fictional and non-fictional narratives, layering documentation of the rehearsal process with behind-the-scenes footage and staged reenactments co-authored and performed by the cast.
Inspired by the original discourse of dramatic tragedy as a forum for communal catharsis, Parts I and II of En Parábola use theater and rehearsal as a platform through which to bring two casts—one based in New York City, the other in Puerto Rico—together. Natalia and her collaborators deconstruct the Greek dramatic structure, using it as a creative device to explore the complexities of the Puerto Rican diasporic experience and the interconnected challenges faced by diverse migratory journeys. Together, they imagine a future for the play’s mythological characters wherein they survive the tragedy—a future that aligns with a Puerto Rican post-disaster imaginary in which new definitions of sovereignty and freedom are possible.
Through participatory efforts to reshape collective memory, En Parábola proposes theatrical rehearsal as a site of speculation and reunion, where Puerto Ricans can revise, unlearn, experiment, and build narratives, woven from their lived experiences. Re-envisioning sovereignty as an affective citizenship that exists beyond geographical boundaries, this project is fundamentally an invitation to exercise our right to imagination and the potentialities of fantasy and fiction.
En Parábola is part of Rituals of Speaking, a film-led series exploring how artists represent the voices of others through collective storytelling. All programs are presented and commissioned by Amant with additional support from a Mellon Foundation fellowship granted by the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, in collaboration with Princeton University. With additional curatorial guidance from Natalia Viera Salgado.
Installation shots by New document
SELECTED PROJECTS ︎︎︎
Geografía(s) del Jiquilite al Añil
Leila Mattina
Exhibition
Dates: September 22-November, 2023
Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space
Geografía(s) del Jiquilite al Añil is the first U.S. solo exhibition by Puerto Rican artist Leila Mattina. The exhibition encompasses artworks and documentation that traces indigo production in the Puerto Rican archipelago. Through research and material-based work, Mattina shares insights garnered from the cultivation and processing of different types of indigo in Puerto Rico and their interconnectedness in the Caribbean and Latin America.
Geografía(s) del Jiquilite al Añil considers how blue–the color that indigo produces–connects us within and to the Archipelago, physically, historically and politically. The exhibition showcases varieties of seeds, unprocessed fibers, powdered indigo, and a mortar. All produced and sourced from Puerto Rico, these materials are gathered from TRAMA Antillana, a farm in Aibonito, Puerto Rico founded by the artist. TRAMA Antillana educates the public on the processing of natural dyes and fibers, alongside the chemical constituents and historical significance associated with these materials.
This exhibition aims to illuminate overlooked or eradicated craft practices in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean due to colonization, extractivist practices, destruction of natural resources, and modernization in the name of “progress.” For the Puerto Rican archipelago–a land so fertile, yet prevented from producing and exporting local goods by its colonial relationship with the U.S–Geografía(s) del Jiquilite al Añil offers pathways for self-governance and self-determination.
Geografía(s) del Jiquilite al Añil is organized by Natalia Viera Salgado and co-presented by Artists Alliance Inc., Abrons Arts Center, and Pública Espacio Cultural as part of La Residencia.
La Residencia is a collaborative residency partnership between Abrons Arts Center (New York, NY) and Pública (San Juan, PR) and made possible with funds provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Exhibition and publication design by Alejandro Torres Viera
Images courtesy of Brad Farwell
Geografía(s) del Jiquilite al Añil
Leila Mattina
Exhibition
Dates: September 22-November, 2023
Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space
Geografía(s) del Jiquilite al Añil is the first U.S. solo exhibition by Puerto Rican artist Leila Mattina. The exhibition encompasses artworks and documentation that traces indigo production in the Puerto Rican archipelago. Through research and material-based work, Mattina shares insights garnered from the cultivation and processing of different types of indigo in Puerto Rico and their interconnectedness in the Caribbean and Latin America.
Geografía(s) del Jiquilite al Añil considers how blue–the color that indigo produces–connects us within and to the Archipelago, physically, historically and politically. The exhibition showcases varieties of seeds, unprocessed fibers, powdered indigo, and a mortar. All produced and sourced from Puerto Rico, these materials are gathered from TRAMA Antillana, a farm in Aibonito, Puerto Rico founded by the artist. TRAMA Antillana educates the public on the processing of natural dyes and fibers, alongside the chemical constituents and historical significance associated with these materials.
This exhibition aims to illuminate overlooked or eradicated craft practices in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean due to colonization, extractivist practices, destruction of natural resources, and modernization in the name of “progress.” For the Puerto Rican archipelago–a land so fertile, yet prevented from producing and exporting local goods by its colonial relationship with the U.S–Geografía(s) del Jiquilite al Añil offers pathways for self-governance and self-determination.
Geografía(s) del Jiquilite al Añil is organized by Natalia Viera Salgado and co-presented by Artists Alliance Inc., Abrons Arts Center, and Pública Espacio Cultural as part of La Residencia.
La Residencia is a collaborative residency partnership between Abrons Arts Center (New York, NY) and Pública (San Juan, PR) and made possible with funds provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Exhibition and publication design by Alejandro Torres Viera
Images courtesy of Brad Farwell
SELECTED PROJECTS ︎︎︎
LAS CARPETAS
Exhibition
Dates: January 14-March 14, 2021
Abrons Arts Center, New York
From the 1930s until 1987, the Puerto Rican Police Department in conjunction with the FBI conducted a massive secret surveillance program in Puerto Rico. Its main goal was to suppress any groups or individuals who sought independence from the United States. This program tracked around 150,000 citizens and is one of the longest continuous surveillance projects conducted by the U.S. Government on its own citizens.
Exhibition and publication design by Alejandro Torres Viera
Images courtesy of Daniel Terna
LAS CARPETAS
Exhibition
Dates: January 14-March 14, 2021
Abrons Arts Center, New York
From the 1930s until 1987, the Puerto Rican Police Department in conjunction with the FBI conducted a massive secret surveillance program in Puerto Rico. Its main goal was to suppress any groups or individuals who sought independence from the United States. This program tracked around 150,000 citizens and is one of the longest continuous surveillance projects conducted by the U.S. Government on its own citizens.
Exhibition and publication design by Alejandro Torres Viera
Images courtesy of Daniel Terna
COUNTERFLAGS
Exhibition
Dates: June 24-August 22, 2021
Abrons Arts Center, New York
Counter Flags reflects on the performativity and choreographed gesture of creating flags. Beyond ideas of nationalism(s), this exhibition explores the relationships to place, historical narratives, identities, borders, language, and the utility of this object. How can the design and presentation of flags be acts of resistance to colonial paradigms?
This exhibition offers counternarratives around these ideas and features work by Lizania Cruz (Dominican Republic), Kahlil Robert Irving (USA), Edra Soto (Puerto Rico), Carlos Martiel (Cuba), José Castrellón (Panama), Jason Mena (Puerto Rico) Melissa Raymond (Canada), René Sandín (Puerto Rico), María Lulú Varona (Puerto Rico), Ricardo Cabret (Puerto Rico), Esperanza Mayobre (Venezuela), and Esvin Alarcón Lam (Guatemala).
Exhibition design by Alejandro Torres Viera
Images courtesy of Daniel Terna
Exhibition
Dates: June 24-August 22, 2021
Abrons Arts Center, New York
Counter Flags reflects on the performativity and choreographed gesture of creating flags. Beyond ideas of nationalism(s), this exhibition explores the relationships to place, historical narratives, identities, borders, language, and the utility of this object. How can the design and presentation of flags be acts of resistance to colonial paradigms?
This exhibition offers counternarratives around these ideas and features work by Lizania Cruz (Dominican Republic), Kahlil Robert Irving (USA), Edra Soto (Puerto Rico), Carlos Martiel (Cuba), José Castrellón (Panama), Jason Mena (Puerto Rico) Melissa Raymond (Canada), René Sandín (Puerto Rico), María Lulú Varona (Puerto Rico), Ricardo Cabret (Puerto Rico), Esperanza Mayobre (Venezuela), and Esvin Alarcón Lam (Guatemala).
Exhibition design by Alejandro Torres Viera
Images courtesy of Daniel Terna
