Miguel Luciano, Shields/Escudos, 2020

Miguel Luciano: I’m Miguel Luciano and the artworks here are protest shields that were made from decommissioned school buses in Puerto Rico. I started making them in 2019 during a time that there were widespread protests in Puerto Rico against the local government. They were made in response to the debt crisis, and really in response to the U.S. appointed fiscal board, whose austerity measures have included massive school closures throughout the island. Hundreds of public schools have been closed in Puerto Rico throughout the years, and today they’re trying to close even more. So you’ll find abandoned schools all over the island now. And a lot of abandoned school buses that become sad reminders of a broken educational system.

I was in Corozal, Puerto Rico, which is a rural town, and came across this school bus graveyard from a local bus company. And I asked them if we could use some of the material from the buses for a project, and they agreed. So we stripped down the sides of these abandoned school buses, removing the sheet metal that was like the armor of the bus that once protected children on their way to school. And that sheet metal now becomes the armor of these protest shields that were designed to protect the protestors that have been out there trying to defend the future of education for young people on the island. 

On the back of every shield there’s a Puerto Rican flag that’s painted in black and white, which became a symbol of resistance during this time, and an overall symbol against protest in Puerto Rico today.