La Casa de Todos / Everyone’s Home , an exhibition by Edra Soto will reimagine the existing installation SCAFFOLD. Join us for opening talks, public viewing, and a performance from BomPleneras at 5 PM.
Soto’s practice draws from her Puerto Rican roots to instigate conversations about history, diasporic identity, and constructed social orders. La Casa de Todos builds on her ongoing project “Graft,” which integrates architectural intervention and social practice.
With this public installation, Soto invites the community to celebrate a shared home together. La Casa de Todos, or “Everyone's Home,” reconfigures Via Chicago Architects + Disenadores’ work titled SCAFFOLD, transforming its structure by overlapping abstract carved panels, delineating safe zones destined to house public gatherings and moments for celebration.
The decorative motifs carved to the panels are directly sourced from representations of Puerto Rican rejas (wrought iron screens) commonly found throughout the archipelago. The introduction to a structure painted with a multicolored palette, a new approach to Soto’s work, was sourced from the archipelago's residential architecture. Her representations of rejas propose and celebrate the cultural value of Puerto Rico's lower- and middle-class communities. Soto’s works investigate and make visible the relationships between Puerto Rican cultural memory, its African and Black heritage, and the threads of colonial historical lineage of the United States.
5PM: Las BomPleneras
Founded in 2010 by Ivelisse Diaz and Jessica Rodriguez, Las BomPleneras is an all-women Bomba and Plena ensemble dedicated to the preservation and advancement of the Afro-Puerto Rican music and dance genres, Bomba and Plena.
Known for their skillful musicianship, dynamic harmonies, and powerful stage presence, Las BomPleneras strives to honor and celebrate the rich musical traditions of Puerto Rico while creating a platform for the representation and empowerment of women.
As one of only a handful of all-women Bomba and Plena groups in Puerto Rico and the diaspora, BomPleneras continues to break barriers in this traditionally male-dominated art form, inspiring future generations of female musicians and cultural workers. ¡Aquí llegaron Las BomPleneras!
IG: @bompleneras / www.bomberadecorazon.com
La Casa de Todos is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Terra Foundation for American Art, and is part of Art Design Chicago, a citywide collaboration initiated by the Terra Foundation that highlights the city’s artistic heritage and creative communities.
