Verbal Description: Miguel Luciano, Shields/Escudos, 2020

Narrator: Shields / Escudos consists of ten protest shields made from the sheet metal of decommissioned school buses in Puerto Rico. Each of the ten shields is mounted on a free-standing support with a square base and together they are arranged in a “V” formation. The shields are vertical rectangles, 35 inches high, 21 inches wide and 3.5 inches deep. The front of the shields show cropped sections of the original school bus. They are all a warm yellow color with a stripe of black horizontal ridges towards the top and bottom of the shield. Right above the top black ridges are letters from the text on the original school bus. Some shields have other markings or text such as a curved stripe of white and smaller red text outlined in white saying “cabida 20 pasajeros”, meaning “capacity 20 passengers”. The shields are in rough shape, showing the age of the original school bus. Scratches and nicks all over show the gray of color of the sheet metal peaking through the yellow paint. The letters outlined in red are filled in with chipping white paint revealing large sections of the black base color coming through. 

There are screws all across the shields except in the center and attached to the back of the shields is the Puerto Rican “resistance” flag in black an white, a widely-recognized symbol of independence, protest, and grief. Its large white star is at the top of the shield and its three black and two white stripes run vertically. Centered on the back edges of the shield are two black vertical metal handles.