The editorial categories are research topics that have guided researchers during the recovery phase and continue to be the impetus behind the Documents Project’s digital archive and the Critical Documents book series. Developed by the project’s Editorial Board, each of the teams analyzed this framework and adapted it to their local contexts in developing their research objectives and work plans during the Recovery Phase. Learn more on the Editorial Framework page.
This document contains Bibiana Suaréz's responses to four of the eighteen questions posed to artists by the organizers of The Puerto Rican Equation, an exhibition marking the occasion of the 1898 invasion of Puerto Rico by the United States. Suarez chose to answer questions focused on the following topics: the nature of Puerto Rican ethnic identity and its role in her work; the most important issues facing Puerto Ricans in the twenty-first century; the effects of the differences between the experiences of Puerto Ricans who live in the United States and Puerto Ricans on the island; and whether art that intends to expand consciousness can affect change.
An edited version of this document was included in the form of a roundtable discussion in the exhibition catalog The Puerto Rican Equation, organized by Juan Sánchez and mounted at the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery at Hunter College in New York City in 1998. The Puerto Rican-born artist Suarez has lived in Chicago since 1980, where she received a BFA and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has exhibited widely in the United States and Puerto Rico and has written about bicultural identity, the politics of the colonial relationship of the United States and Puerto Rico, and contemporary art.