Jorge González

Jorge González:  I’m Jorge González, a Puerto Rican artist.

For the exhibition, there's a main attention on a specific fiber, which is cattail. We call it enea. I have been drawn to this material given to artisanal practices in the island, by two different families.

Narrator: One of these families, weaves mats from the enea. The other uses the cattails to make furniture.

Jorge González: Both are traditions that are close to a hundred years of being transmitted from different families, from different generations within the families. I've worked with both families in attaining the knowledge.

There are other recognitions among the work that I am conscious of. How this mat, also, organizes itself within design proposals in Puerto Rico by modernist architects that arrive to the island with a conscious of working with our climatic context.

Narrator: In this installation, González explores the ways Puerto Rico’s craft traditions connect the island to its indigenous past. He has also included prints of petroglyphs left by the Taíno, and other pre-Columbian objects.

Jorge González: I am grateful for the people who have paved the way in claiming our being indigenous or the indigenous groups that are in the Antilles. That's how the bridge between modernity and the indigenous has happened in my work, dealing with artisanal traditions and working within the landscape.