Miguel Luciano’s Civic Practice Partnership Artist-in-Residence Projects

Mapping Resistance was a public art project by Miguel Luciano commemorating the activist history of the Young Lords in East Harlem. This project featured the photography of Hiram Maristany, a lifelong resident of East Harlem, who was the official photographer of the Young Lords, and a founding member of the New York chapter. Historic photographs of Young Lords’ activist moments were enlarged and installed throughout East Harlem at the same locations where the events took place fifty years ago. Walking tours and additional public programs explored how activists like the Young Lords created community-driven solutions in times of crisis, from the post–Civil Rights era in New York to the post–Hurricane Maria present in Puerto Rico. The Met participated in this project by organizing tours and supporting the printing of the brochure.

Luciano brought Puerto Rico–based wellness practitioners and activists Salud y Acupuntura para el Pueblo (SAPP; Health and Acupuncture for the People) to Afropunk alongside other Met programming to offer free auriculotherapy services to festival attendees. Auriculotherapy is facilitated through a noninvasive pellet (or seed) application on the ear at the Shen Men, or “heavenly gate,” ear point, also called the “gateway to the spirit.” During his residency at The Met, Luciano explored connections between the activist history of the Young Lords in East Harlem, who offered a variety of free health services including acupuncture, and contemporary activism in Puerto Rico post–Hurricane Maria.

These works are protest shields made from decommissioned Puerto Rican school buses. Hundreds of schools have closed in Puerto Rico since 2017 due to debt-crisis austerity programs, neglect and local corruption, natural disasters (hurricanes, earthquakes), and shifting populations. Over twenty-five percent of public schools on the island have now been shuttered (pre–COVID pandemic). The artist notes, “The metal bus armor that once protected children while in transit to local schools is repurposed into protest shields to protect those fighting for the future of children’s education, and for the right of Puerto Ricans to be self-determined and free.” This work was inspired in part by work in The Met’s Arms and Armor galleries, and by those who have continued to rise up in protest against the violence of racism and colonialism, both in Puerto Rico and throughout the US.

During his residency, Luciano became interested in the Zemí Cohoba Stand made by the indigenous Caribbean Taíno people. The work was scanned in 3D in collaboration with The Met’s Imaging Department and The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing. Using the scan, Luciano had a copy of the sculpture milled and a mold made, which was then used to cast several replicas in various materials. The replicas have been shown in Puerto Rican community spaces in East Harlem, where Luciano lives, as well as in gallery settings. For the artist, creating and exhibiting the Taíno Zemí replica sculpture presents an opportunity to symbolically liberate the artwork from the museum vitrine and reimagine it in the space of a community whose heritage and ancestry it shares.

This exclusive “El Met” collection is an artist project by Miguel Luciano designed to expand the visibility of Latinx art at The Met. All proceeds from the sale of “El Met” merchandise support the acquisition of Latinx art at the Museum.

The artist describes the project as follows:

“‘El Met’ is how we say ‘The Met in Spanglish. It’s how Latinx audiences throughout New York City and beyond colloquially describe the Museum as a destination. As a Civic Practice Partnership Artist in Residence, one of the first things I explored was the history of representation among Puerto Rican and Latinx artists at the Museum, asking the fundamental question: Where do we see ourselves at The Met? The groundbreaking exhibition The Art Heritage of Puerto Rico: Pre-Columbian to Present (1973), a collaboration with El Museo del Barrio, became a focal point in my research, as it remains the largest survey of Puerto Rican art in any US museum to date. Unfortunately, it didn’t lead to major acquisitions, future exhibition opportunities, or sustainable relationships with Latinx communities in the generations that followed.

In response to the underrepresentation of Puerto Rican and Latinx artists in the collection, I remixed The Met logo into ‘El Met’ as a way of reimagining the Museum through the lens of Spanish-speaking audiences. I then created a limited edition of ‘El Met’ T-shirts as a provocation to increase the visibility of Latinx art at the Museum.”

> Learn more in the press release
> Purchase “El Met” merchandise in The Met Store

The pop-up exhibition, Cemí-Libre, was the culminating project of Luciano’s Civic Practice Partnership artist residency at The Met, where he engaged with the archives and collections while highlighting historic connections between the Museum and East Harlem, such as the 1973 exhibition The Art Heritage of Puerto Rico: Pre-Colombian to Present, a collaboration with El Museo del Barrio. The exhibition features work drawing on The Met collection and identity, including Luciano’s “El Met”project in collaboration with the Museum’s Retail Department, and Cemí-Libre, a bronze replica sculpture of the Museum’s Taíno Zemí Cohoba Stand (974–1027). This artwork has been a touchstone for Caribbean audiences for generations; the Taíno collection at The Met is one of the only areas of Puerto Rican/Caribbean representation regularly on view. Here, the Zemí was symbolically liberated from its museum vitrine and presented in a community context where it could be intimately experienced by audiences who share direct connections to its history and heritage. Luciano hosted a community block party—what he called “a love letter to his community”—on July 31, 2021, celebrating the pop-up exhibition. The celebration featured music, traditional foods, children’s activities, and a Taíno ritual to welcome the replica representation of a Zemí rain god created by the artist to East Harlem.

> View event listing
> Learn more in the press release

MetFest was The Met’s first-ever Museum-wide block party and a celebration of the transformative power of the arts on the occasion of the Museum’s 150th anniversary. Artists and community partners from across New York City came together for live music, performances, art-making activities, unique tours, and more. MetFest honored the central role of art in our lives and highlighted the resilience of New York City and its people. Among over 100 performers, the Civic Practice Partnership artists in residence made significant contributions to programming, including the invitation by Luciano for several performers to join the festivities, including the bomba y plena band Los Pleneros de la 21 and the Classic Riders Schwinn Club. Cuatrista Fabiola Méndez recorded a video with Luciano to highlight the cuatros (Puerto Rico’s “national instrument”, a stringed instrument derivative of the Spanish guitar) in The Met collection, activating the instruments as part of Luciano’s larger project to render Puerto Rican art and artists more visible at the Museum.

> Watch a video of cuatrista Fabiola Méndez playing cuatros in The Met collection.
> Learn more about MetFest in the press release.