Welcome to Paradise: ¡Viva Puerto Rico Libre!
Welcome to Paradise: ¡Viva Puerto Rico Libre!
November 6, 2025 - January 10, 2026
Reception: November 6, 2025
Welcome to Paradise: ¡Viva Puerto Rico Libre! confronts the glossy image of Puerto Rico as a tropical haven, exposing centuries of colonization, U.S. rule, and disaster capitalism. The exhibition layers spectacle with critique: lenticular prints, neon signs, and a claw machine lure the eye, while hurricane relief tarps stitched into flags, a vending machine dispensing buried histories, and protest slogans revealed only under black light pull viewers into deeper truths. A slowed revolutionary anthem fills the space, its distortion casting a haunting weight.
Born from Jo Cosme’s realization after leaving Borikén post-hurricane María of how little North Americans knew of Borikén/Puerto Rico’s exploitation, the work inverts tourism’s tools, exposing their colonial weight. The November 2025 presentation at ARTS at King Street Station expands the frame by including artists who are still living on the archipelago alongside those who have recently been displaced, insisting that their voices take center stage. This is not spectacle but defiance: a demand to unlearn the fantasy of paradise and confront complicity in colonialism.
Additional artists: Carla Brito Mattei, Krónico, Laura Colón, Oscar Meléndez Rivera, Steven Rivera, Mya Pagán, Omar Velázquez, Javier Moreno, Jorge Mattei, Stephanie Segarra, Natalia Bosques Chico, Rosenda Álvarez Faro, Garvin Sierra Vega, Braulio GioVannetti, Melanie Rivera, Admin Torres, Frank Xavier, Paola Zayas-Bazán, Flaki Joe, Nepo, Michel Collado, Stephanie Silva, Luis Eliezer Rivera Ortiz, Mónica Parada, PABT, Shey Rivera, S. Urbain, José Sierra Santiago, José “Osto” Ostolaza, Paulette Fort
What to Expect
Welcome to Paradise: ¡Viva Puerto Rico Libre! Features 2D and 3D work, as well as film and virtual work depicting themes of imperialism, liberation, protest, revolution, critiques of capitalism, stereotype, displacement, and tourism as colonization. Imagery and text include social and natural landscapes, tourism signage and commentary, protest, strong language, animals, and human figures.
Artist Bio
Jo Cosme, a native Boricua multimedia artist from Borikén, Puerto Rico, faced displacement to Seattle following Hurricane María’s landfall. She was deeply struck by North Americans’ lack of awareness regarding their nation’s exploitative and ongoing colonial relationship with her homeland archipelago. Through mixed digital media and installations, Cosme contrasts the romanticized idea of Borikén, PR, as a Caribbean paradise with the stark reality of a People enduring colonial subjugation for over 5 centuries.
Her new body of work, Welcome to Paradise: ¡Viva Puerto Rico Libre! is a growing body of work meant to tour the continental US, aiming to educate and mobilize against US Imperialism and disaster capitalism. It challenges audiences to confront their complicity in perpetuating power dynamics during travel. After having culminated her scholarship at the arts residency Anderson Ranch Fine Arts Center in Colorado, Cosme is showing an expanded version of the project paired with a curation of local artists directly from Borikén in Seattle’s ARTS at King Street Station.