MAR ADENTRO at Museo de Arte Contemporaneo PR

Installation view of *MAR ADENTRO* at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico, San Juan. Photograph by Thais Llorca and image courtesy of Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico, San Juan.

Installation view of Tessa Mars, *ALL ISLANDS TOUCH | TODAS LAS ISLAS SE TOCAN* (2024) in *MAR ADENTRO* at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico, San Juan. Photograph by Thais Llorca and image courtesy of Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico, San Juan.

MAR ADENTRO, curated by Marina Reyes Franco, Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico (MAC), is an exhibition that invites us to flow inward; considering the waters as an archive of experiences from the rivers to the sea, connecting islands, bodies and struggles. Organized from a selection of works from MAC ’s Permanent Collection, the exhibition consists of two fundamental works by Daniel Lind Ramos , along with pieces that have been part of the exhibition program for the last five years, a recently acquired work by Ángel Otero and a loan from Tessa Mars.

Featuring a diverse group of artists from the Caribbean and its diasporas, MAR ADENTRO focuses on the sea and rivers not only as geographical markers but also as channels of ancestral memory, a material source, and a site of environmental reflection and resistance. Water becomes a metaphor, a material, and a method. From the conch shell transformed into a surreal portal for communion with the orishas, to the piece that explores imperial collecting practices to reconfigure a Black cosmology through sea, land, and sky, each work reclaims water as a space of power. Some pieces confront the spectacle and contradictions of Caribbean tourism. Others honor the cultural labor of coastal communities and the persistence of survival among the creatures who live among estuaries and mangroves, awash in memories and colonial destruction.

Together, these works create a conversation from the river’s source to the ocean depths, inviting us to listen—to the shells, to the roots, to the waves, to ourselves. This exhibition was made possible through sponsorship by the Teiger Foundation, Banco Popular, the Special Joint Commission on Legislative Funds for Community Impact, and the Puerto Rico Tourism Company. Institutional support is provided by the Mellon Foundation, the Wallace Foundation, the Getty Foundation, and the Terra Foundation for American Art.

from the exhibition text