Art as protest and memorialisation: a survey of local and diasporic responses to Hurricane María

• Published in: Mortality (Abingdon, England) Vol. 29; no. 2; pp. 289 - 305
• Main Author: Ramírez Rodríguez, Stella M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 02.04.2024; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Biopolitics; Comics; death; Diaspora; Disaster; Disasters; Government; Grief; Hurricanes; Marginality; memorialisation; Puerto Rico; Trauma
• ISSN: 1357-6275; 1469-9885
• DOI: 10.1080/13576275.2023.2231891

Puerto Rico has a history of rich funerary traditions that include the use of cemí and the baquiné. Presently, the practice of extreme embalming has also taken hold, creating funerary displays that include motorcycles, dominoes, and ambulances, among others. However, what can a community do when there are no bodies to grieve? Worse, the deaths themselves are denied? This was an all too real question in the aftermath of 2017's Hurricane María. With a rising death count and government denial, people turned to artistic creation and protest to make their voices heard. Memorialisation of the missing and deceased became a crucial part in overcoming the disaster's trauma, as well as contesting a government that refused to acknowledge its role in the disaster. Culminating in the Verano Boricua of 2019, the Puerto Rican people's fight against the government's necropolitics resulted in a boom of creative expression to remember those that the government wanted to forget. Through murals, comics, performance art, and protests, Boricuas resisted marginalisation in unique and memorable ways. By exploring these artistic manifestations, one can recognise Puerto Rican community across the island and in the diaspora and how it sought to honour the deceased while processing grief and trauma.