The Center for Puerto Rican Studies (CENTRO) at Hunter College has announced its New York City premiere of the art exhibition, Diasporic Collage: Puerto Rico and the Survival of a People, at its newly acquired gallery in El Barrio. The exhibition opening will be celebrated on March 13th at 7:00 PM. This will be the first exhibition presented at the CENTRO Gallery, a space previously occupied by Hunter East Harlem Gallery at the Silberman School of Social Work. First premiering at the Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, the exhibition was curated in collaboration with the Diaspora Solidarities Lab (DSL), a Black feminist–led multi-institutional partnership housed between CENTRO at Hunter College and Johns Hopkins University.
“We are happy to announce that this gallery space is under our programmatic supervision. This moment was a decade in the making and the Arts & Culture Unit at CENTRO is thrilled to have a space to showcase the work of our diasporic artist community. Diasporic Collage: Puerto Rico and the Survival of a People perfectly fits with our goal of aligning our programming with CENTRO’s Rooted & Relational research agenda,” said Ángel Antonio Ruiz-Laboy, Associate Director of Arts and Culture at CENTRO.
Diasporic Collage was curated by Dalina A. Perdomo Álvarez, assistant curator at the MSU Broad Art Museum; Dr. Yomaira Figueroa-Vásquez, Directora of CENTRO and the DSL; and Dr. Windy M. Cosme Rosario, instructor at the University of Puerto Rico – Río Piedras. Inspired by Frank Espada’s collection of over 4,000 photos and 130 interviews resulting in the publication The Puerto Rican Diaspora: Themes in the Survival of a People, this exhibition extends beyond the work of Espada and considers multiple facets of the Puerto Rican diaspora. Diasporic Collage features the work of 12 artists from across the diaspora and diasporic peoples in Puerto Rico.
“I am incredibly excited to bring this exhibition to inaugurate the CENTRO Gallery,” said Dr. Figueroa-Vásquez. “This exhibition is the culmination of years of work and research with the Diaspora Solidarities Lab and a team of visionary co-curators, researchers, and writers. It feels especially poignant in this moment to present the work of each of these artists as they honor the different diasporas that intersect with the archipelago of Puerto Rico, documenting their communities with care and showing us a collage of lived experiences.”
“We congratulate CENTRO on the opening of their new exhibition and gallery and look forward to creative collaborations in the near future. This moment also marks a new chapter for the Hunter East Harlem Gallery as we relocate to a new space within the Silberman building, to open in Spring 2026,” said Harper Montgomery, Director of the Hunter College Art Galleries and Susan and David Bershad Professor of Art History.
The exhibition will be on view until September 26th, 2025 Tuesday-Thursday and Saturday from 12-5 PM.
The following artists and photographers are featured in the exhibition:
- La Vaughn Belle
- Rebel Betty
- Mónica Ching
- Frank Espada
- Alia Farid
- Glorimar Garcia
- Daniel Lind Ramos
- María Martínez-Cañas
- Luis Rivera Jiménez
- Edra Soto
- Brenda Torres-Figueroa
- Nitza Tufiño
Click here to read more about the exhibition and see photos of the gallery.