The Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College (CENTRO), has named Leenda Bonilla the Spring 2023 Artistic Research Resident Fellow with a focus on an art project exploring themes of feminism.
Leenda Bonilla is an interdisciplinary artist, art + culture producer, and a specialist in civic engagement with art-making practices. She is focused on reconstructing contemporary narratives of her Puerto Rican heritage and is deeply influenced by her urban/suburban/island background (born in NYC, raised in The Bronx and Puerto Rico).
“This creative project elevates the activists and the innocent ones who were at the wrong place at the wrong time. I want to find personal and communal stories of injustices that affected Puerto Rican women and bring them to light with this interdisciplinary process,” said Leenda Bonilla.
She will develop a visual narrative project that seeks to fill in the history timeline of Puerto Rican women and girls living in the mainland and island from 1972 to 2022. Inspired by reading artist “Faith Ringgold: American People” during a residency, Bonilla encountered a powerful work titled, The United States of Attica, a striking print of the United States mapped out with notes and headlines that described violent events that occurred throughout the states. However, the image leaves out all of the U.S. occupied territories that are under governance or economic control. Bonilla’s aspiration is to fill in the history of violence to Puerto Ricans, especially women and those that identify from 1972 to present.
For this project, Leenda will utilize CENTRO Archives to gather information to write chronologically documented historical moments between the timeline from 1972 to 2022 of the injustices laid upon Boricua women, girls and those identifying. Bonilla anticipate opening a dialogue with these updated maps to raise awareness about the names of women/girls/women-identifying who fought to create, bridge, and unite with justice that takes place in body, mind, spirit, within the constructs of government policies, laws, capitalism, education, art, and advocacy, and only encountered the resistance from patriarchal social/governmental constructs.
About The Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College (CENTRO)
Founded in 1973 by a coalition of students, faculty, and activists, the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College (CENTRO) is the largest university-based research institute, library, and archive dedicated to the Puerto Rican experience in the United States. CENTRO provides support to students, scholars, artists, and members of the community at large across and beyond New York. CENTRO produces original research, films, books, and educational tools, and is the home of CENTRO Journal—the premiere academic journal of Puerto Rican Studies. The aim of CENTRO is to create actionable and accessible scholarship to strengthen, broaden, and reimagine the field of Puerto Rican studies.
About The Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College (CENTRO)
Founded in 1973 by a coalition of students, faculty, and activists, the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College (CENTRO) is the largest university-based research institute, library, and archive dedicated to the Puerto Rican experience in the United States. CENTRO provides support to students, scholars, artists, and members of the community at large across and beyond New York. CENTRO produces original research, films, books, and educational tools, and is the home of CENTRO Journal—the premiere academic journal of Puerto Rican Studies. The aim of CENTRO is to create actionable and accessible scholarship to strengthen, broaden, and reimagine the field of Puerto Rican studies.