BIO

Sofía Shaula Reeser-del Rio (b. 1989) is a Puerto Rican scholar, independent curator, multidisciplinary artist, and educator. Her practice is based between Puerto Rico, Madrid, and NYC. She has organized and produced several major exhibitions with a special focus on Latinx, Latin American, and Caribbean artists, particularly supporting LGBTQ and self-identified female artists from Puerto Rico. Her artistic practice explores themes of memory, ecology, sustainability, new modes of economic/social production, and pedagogy. 

As part of her curatorial tenure (2012-2017) at El Museo del Barrio in New York, she coordinated and organized over thirty exhibitions and numerous public programs, artists’ projects, site-specific installations, and off-site special projects. Some notable ones include NKAME: A Retrospective of Cuban Printmaker Belkis Ayón (2017), Antonio Lopez: Future Funk Fashion (2016), Illusive Eye (2016), Marisol (2015), Pa'Lante: Young Lords in New York (2015), PLAYING WITH FIRE: Political Interventions, Dissident Acts, and Mischievous Actions (2014), Museum Starter Kit: Open with Care (2013), La Bienal (2013), Caribbean Crossroads of the World (2012). She also oversaw the development, and management of the Artists in Residency, Lucky Sevens Art Salon, and the Portfolio Reviews, programs that reimagined contemporary artists’ roles and their relationships with the Museum.

Sofía has an MFA from the University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain, and a BFA from the Pratt Institute. She is also a graduate of the University of Puerto Rico, where she took courses with renowned Puerto Rican visual artists, educators, and academics that shaped and informed her practices. She is a member of the community-based organization Mujeres de Islas, Inc, a Culebra, PR's NGO, and a certified postnatal Doula and an Ashtanga and prenatal Yoga Teacher.

STATEMENT

My artistic and curatorial practice is intertwined. I investigate and execute both through a transdisciplinary conceptualization, researching and collaborating around gender, sustainability, and race issues, giving visibility to what is, in these senses, on the margins. It is an exercise that reviews and questions the dominant and normative narratives, focused on self-care as a form of #HealingRevolution, the stories/experiences of migration, exile, and the alternative economic and socio-political modes of production. I tend to work and explore these ideas in both my practices. That generates programs that consider the diverse communities and voices that inhabit the Caribbean, North, Central, and South America—making their diasporas visible, developing an interest in the academic-artistic community for these narratives.

My artistic work focuses on the body's relationships with three fundamental axes: memory, rituals, and architecture. It is an empirical work (based on the senses, observation, and experimentation) and poetic (approaching experience and knowledge from the intuitive, subconscious, and imaginary) as pauses allow us to observe the interactions (conscious and unconscious) more closely.

As a curator and arts producer, I provide and find platforms to heighten artists' diverse voices, social/cultural realities, and communities. In my role as curator, I take an active role in ensuring that what is programmed and selected invites new ways of thinking about ourselves, our communities, and the world, pushing boundaries, trying new technologies, and creating memorable experiences that generate meaningful dialogues. My goal is to weave the gap between art and the public responding to the ever-changing ecosystems each inhabits.