A site-specific performance in association with the exhibition Lani Asunción: Duty-Free Paradise, curated by J.R. Uretsky currently on view at the Mills Gallery.

 

Join us on Saturday, March 16, 2024, from 4-6 pm at the Mills Gallery for performances by Lani Asunción, Shey’ Rí Acu’ Rivera Ríos and Anabel Vázquez Rodríguez. Artists will conjure cultural memory, queer power, and liberated futures through performances that respond to the impacts of imperialism in the context of the United States and grounded on the events of 1898 when the United States invaded Puerto Rico and annexed Hawai’i.

*Performance starts promptly at 4:30 pm

 

Performance has sold out:
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ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE

On Saturday, March 16, 2024, the Mills Gallery will host a special performance by three New England-based artists from 4-6 pm. This event is part of the exhibition Lani Asunción: Duty-Free Paradise, curated by J.R. Uretsky. The three artists, Lani Asunción, Shey’ Rí Acu’ Rivera Ríos, and Anabel Vázquez Rodríguez, will navigate themes related to colonial memory, queer power, and liberated futures. Performances will address the colonial effects of imperialism using as a point of departure the 1898 Spanish-American War, when the United States military invaded Puerto Rico and illegally annexed Hawai’i following the U.S. invasion there in 1893. In 1898, Spain lost the war over Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Philippines, and Guam through the armistice signed with the U.S.

 

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Lani Asunción creates powerful performances that pay tribute to Kānaka Maoli culture and Filipinx mythologies while exposing the roles imperialism and U.S. militarization played in shaping Hawai’i from a once-free sovereign state to a tourist paradise. 

Shey’ Rí Acu’ Rivera Ríos is an interdisciplinary artist and cultural worker who uses creative practice to generate portals into liberatory futures. They use performance as a form of repair and cultural grounding to embody ancestral resistance, challenge U.S. imperialism, and birth decolonial queer Boricua futurities. 

Anabel Vázquez Rodriguez’s artistic production includes photography, painting, film/video, installation, and performance art. Their work anchors in otherness, anarcha-feminism, galactical dimensions, and obliterating colonial systems.