In One Puerto Rican City, a Transformation Through Art

A new look through artistic engagement

By the Caribbean Journal staff

It’s a new kind of art in one Puerto Rican city.

Puerto Rican artist Sofia Maldonado is leading a new movement in the territory’s urban space, looking to revitalize Puerto Rico through public art.

Maldonado’s latest project, Cromática, Caguas a Color, has transformed several unused buildings in the city of Caguas into dynamic art spaces.

At the core of the project is her project, Kalaña, set in a former tobacco warehouse. The project “kind of expanded painting, covering walls, roofs, and floors both inside and outside,” according to a release.

“Since 2012, I went into a gestation period, exploring and evaluating what my work does and is about. I have become more of a conceptual and cultural advocate. That process led me to open the studio in Puerto Rico and ultimately to what became Kalaña. Kalaña is a social experiment, a post-medium expression, meant to explore the reaction of the public towards an abstract -public- composition,” she says. “By making away with the kind of figurative art that has come to be associated with public spaces, Kalaña diversifies what society perceives and approves as a contemporary public art.”

Maldonado says the project is more than art – it’s a way to “contribute to Puerto Rico in however way I can.”