FEMA Tarps and USACE Blue Roofs Aid in Protecting Homes From Further Damage Release Date: October 19, 2017
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) are providing roof repair options for Puerto Rican homeowners to protect their homes from further damage caused by wind and rain.
Operation Blue Roof, managed by USACE, provides a temporary covering of reinforced blue plastic sheeting using strips of wood secured to the roof with nails or screws to help reduce further damage to property until permanent repairs can be made. In order to be considered for this program, a homeowner/landlord must legally agree to allow the USACE contractors access to the property by signing a Right of Entry (ROE) form. Blue Roofs are designed to last for 30 days. (Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2017)
On September 21st, 2017, a white sky illuminated Puerto Rico and its tree filled muddy streets that were flanked by fallen electricity poles and hanging cables. There was an eerie silence that would send shivers down your spine if it wasn’t so humid. No birds chirped to welcome the morning and we were all in a state of shock as we discovered the magnitude of the damage that had occurred the night before. Writing about this is anything but easy, yet I find that sharing my experience is an important step into establishing connections and unpacking the significance of Isabela Miñana Lovelace’s Un edredón para los turistas, (2020) or “A quilt for the tourists”. A stunning piece that touches on comfort (or lack thereof), neglect and the disastrous government Puerto Ricans have dealt with as a product of US imperialism and our colonial status.
Hurricane María struck our island almost seven years ago but time has yet to heal the horrific sensations that filled our bodies before, during and after her passage. I was in my second year of high school. My parents did whatever was necessary to get by after the storm. Sometimes that meant drunken nights to snooze through the humid, mosquito laden atmosphere that brewed in our rented space. Other nights we would treat ourselves to sleeping in our small car. It was a true treat because gas prices had surged. But it was also the only way to refresh ourselves from the stench of gasoline that permeated throughout from the neighbors’ generators. I was silently furious most of the time. I was born and raised on an island that many people escape to. “I live where you vacation” was a phrase that I would proudly say during my elementary school years. It felt empowering when I was unaware of the colonial weight tourism carried. It then became absurd, to live on the site of escapism while observing the precariousness become inescapable.
Hurricane María was a sort of beginning into a series of unfortunate events for us. In terms of major natural disasters (because politically, waters have been anything but tranquil), after a deadly hurricane in 2017 came the discovery of abandoned aid in 2018, followed by earthquakes in early 2020 and the global pandemic that brought upon us a lockdown in March 2020. These were times of great anxiety, discomfort, and rage. Sadly, our government was more preoccupied with the pursuit of profit under the guise of economic development, and the general population kept suffering immensely.
A common strategy over here in times of dire need is to ramp up the tourism campaigns. We live under a visitor economy, where our taxpayer money is used and abused in benefit of a few that come and go for some fun under the sun. Home of many, paradise of few Puerto Rico has also become a tax haven and the impact of escapism has surpassed its initial state of the classic tourists or tourist family… Un edredón para los turistas, (2020) is a piece stitched by Isabela Miñana Lovelace, an up and coming diasporican artist interested in materiality and connection. She graduated from the University of Brown with a double major in Visual Arts and Geological Sciences and is currently a MS candidate at the University of Michigan – School of Environment and Sustainability. Throughout her textile work Miñana explores the power and charm of embellishments to tell us a story. Embellishments serve as a textural element all the while adding luster, shine, and overall visual appeal. This specific piece was exhibited in her first solo show titled I don’t feel Comfortable at Home anymore in 2020 where she mounted an ongoing series of comforters on the walls of the List Art Building at Brown. They were meant to be observed and analyzed, stitch by stitch, bead by bead and the space provided room to step back and relish in the beauty and meaning lingering throughout each touch filled work of art.
In Un edredón para los turistas, unpictured and omitted, the bed -a place of rest and recovery and a portal into the dream and pleasure realm- gets stripped away of its insulation and covering to announce a dysfunctional dynamic that has rampaged our territory for centuries. This embellished statement piece screams to us much like the thunderous noise that results from crisp sheets that are shaken when making a bed. IML takes away the functionality of the comforter -cotton stuffed fabric that is meant to bring warmth and safety- and presents the spectator with a multi-textured textile image that is reminiscent of satellite views of land and thermal imaging. The blue plastic patchwork echoes Operation Blue Roof during the FEMA relief efforts post-María in Puerto Rico while the warm floral backdrop distracts from the precariousness of the scene.
Textile art has served historically as a means for women artists to transfer the traditionally crafty and domestic (weaving, knitting, etc.) into the fine arts sphere. In Latin America we cherish artists such as Olga de Amaral (Colombian) with her monumental textile sculptures that challenge notions of space and volume or Cecilia Vicuña (Chilean) whose interventions serve as reflections on current environmental issues as well as making the spectator aware of South America’s artistic pre-Columbian past. As for the Caribbean, figures such as the Trinidadian Althea McNish are cherished for their pioneering work that merges painting, drawing and color theory to print tropicalized fabrics. The art of these women, be it consciously or subconsciously, has materialized a socio-cultural and political feeling by way of a traditionally feminine medium.
In contrast, IML takes an appropriative approach to textile art by manipulating pre-made fabrics with embellishments and patchwork. IML’s interests on the impacts of disasters, communities and networks of support and care, are seen materialized in her art via her use of mix-media (beads, shells, plastic nets, tarp bags, fabric, thread). Circling back to this appropriative approach of a material that came to fruition industrially and not domestically, this serves as an added layer of commentary on the social issues regarding tourism in Puerto Rico. Tourists appropriate our spaces or better, our spaces are appropriated for the tourists.
Un edredón para los turistas was presented in March 2020, a time in which there were still thousands of blue temporary-30-day-roofs coronating our homes. We can see this as a sort of prediction of what was to come. At the time of her exhibition, though Puerto Rico’s borders were closing due to the pandemic, damage had been done, and the restrictions would not last long… Spring break was right around the corner and summertime soon followed. A perfect excuse for US tourists to hop on over to de-stress from the cold lockdown they had endured and get a tan, because why not? Our island’s infrastructure was weak from the hurricane and the earthquakes, yet flights started to be handed out “como pan caliente”. We struggled to find a steady rhythm, between work, education and staying safe, yet tourists had their beds made by us in luxury hotels by the seaside…
Attention must also be brought to the title of this piece. More specifically the word “edredón” which translates to quilt but can also remind us of the word Eden, the name for the biblical paradise. This connection seems fitting given the characterization that the tourism sector gives to Puerto Rico: a tropical paradise and an island of charm or “Isla del encanto”. As mentioned earlier, home of many, paradise of few. This piece brings attention to that reality by highlighting the infrastructural disaster that was not being acknowledged. Beads and charms hold on to broken netting, fix the plastic patchwork in place and add a textural element to the comforter’s floral pattern. The colors present are important as well, with the main ones being orange and blue. These complementary colors create tension with their high contrast and hot and cold attributes. Coincidentally or intentionally, the rest of the colors present – green, yellow, white and red – correspond perfectly to the colors seen in thermal hurricane tracking imaging. They are dispersed throughout the quilt much like the lingering uneasiness the hurricane left on our population. They also somewhat distort the floral pattern, almost like a glitch in the dreamy warm tropical backdrop tourists land on. On the top right corner there is blue netting that could allude to networks and communities, but it could also symbolize a trap.
Isabela Miñana Lovelace calls out to tourists with this piece as an artistic reminder of the power dynamic. While they rejoice in luxurious comfort, warm weather, and a tropical breeze, we suffer from weakened infrastructure, a brittle health care system and an educational system in danger of extinction. It is important to highlight that the sectors of the island tourists are exposed to are nothing but a cover for what is truly going on right under their naïve noses. The infrastructure that is in place for them is stable. Hotels are equipped with generators and water reservoirs to make sure their stays are as comfortable as possible. Comfort is a luxury and IML’s Un edredón para los turistas, (2020) makes this reality inescapable. Blue plastic patchwork reveals itself while visitors are flying up above. Small rectangular bodies of precariousness and a mark of how disaster was handled by our disastrous government.