2    

Towards Experience 

Concentrations

Race, Heritage, and Identity in Puerto Rico; Ethnicity and Nationalism; Black Diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean; Black Feminist Theory. Race and Cultural Nationalism in Public Space; Race and Heritage in Puerto Rican Muralism; Decolonial Pedagogy; Site-Specificity and Placemaking in Urban Landscapes; the Ibero-American City; Socially Engaged Art History; Global Street Art; Protest Culture and Art; Liberation Philosophy and Decolonial Ethics.

EDUCATION

Ph.D., Art History. May 2027, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL (FSU)

M. A., Art History. May 2021, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL (FSU).

BFA, Art History and French. Cum Laude. May 2019, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA (GSU).
FELLOWSHIPS & AWARDS

Mason Research Award 2024

Beard Travel Award 2024/2025/2026

Winbury Writing Award 2024

Leslie N. Wilson-Delores Auzenne Assistantship Fellow 2019–2021

AfroJuventudes Anti-Racist Fellow 2019–2020

ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONs

Forthcoming: Cómo se Aprende [How do you Learn], in Panorama, Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art. University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing. (Fall 2026)

Las Nietas de Nonó: Ilustraciones de la Mecánica and Spaces of Refusal, in Colonial Racial Capitalism, edited by Kency Cornejo. USLAF, X as Intersection: Writing on Latinx Art (Executive Editor). (Fall 2026.)

entre umbral y raíz, in Letras Kaffres – Centro Afro UPR Puerto Rico. (October 16, 2025)

The Basse—a Ghost Engine: Tevin Lewis and the Mythic Systems of Becoming, in Burnaway Magazine. (Summer 2025)

Boundaries of Belonging: Reclaiming Place through Memory and Architecture, in Center for Puerto Rican Studies - Writings on Diasporican Visual Artists. (Spring 2025)

Echoes of Identity: Afro-Puerto Rican Women and the Creole House, in Intervenxions: the Latinx Project (Winter 2023

Recolectando la Semilla: The Creole House and the Negotiation of Memory, Space, and Race in Ponce, Puerto Rico, in Ampersand: An American Studies Journal (Summer 2023)

Teaching Experience

Instructor of Record, Florida State University (FSU), Art History Department, Taught History and
Criticism of Art, Spring 2026 – Section 001

Instructor of Record, Florida State University (FSU), Art History Department, Taught History and
Criticism of Art, Spring 2026 – Section 002

Instructor of Record, Florida State University (FSU), Art History Department, Taught History and
Criticism of Art, Fall 2025 – Section 001

Instructor of Record, Florida State University (FSU), Art History Department, Taught History and
Criticism of Art, Fall 2025 – Section 003

Instructor of Record, Florida State University (FSU), Art History Department, Taught Art
Appreciation, Summer 2025, Term B

Instructor of Record, Florida State University (FSU), Art History Department, Taught History and
Criticism of Art, Spring 2025

Teaching Assistant, Florida State University (FSU), Art History Department, Fall 2019- Fall 2024

Conference Presentations

Forthcoming: “Beyond the Wall: Puerto Rican Muralism in NuevaYol 1970s–1990s,” Presenting at CAA115th Annual Conference in New York, NY.  February 2026.

“Casa Borges: Wild Marronage and the Reclamation of Home,” Presenting at the 46th National Women’s Studies Annual Conference,  Atlanta, Georgia. November 2026.

 “Murals as Living Archives: Puerto Rican Public Art and the Labor of Solidarity,” Presenting at the PRSA 2026 Biennial Conference, in the panel Visual Culture, Public Art, and Decolonial Aesthetics. University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), Chicago, IL. September 2026.

“Monument(s) of the Small: Material Translation and Decolonial Memory in Lua Barbosa’s Between Ghosts and Monuments,” Presented at the Association of Art History Annual Conference. In panel: Intermedia Dialogues in Art & Architecture, Cambridge, United Kingdom. April 2026.

“Race, Place, and Identity: Colonial Narratives in Puerto Rican Street Art.” CAA 114th Annual Conference, Chicago, February 2026.

“Learning  Manifestos–Education as Freedom.” Decentralized Symposium: Redes as Resistance in Pedagogy at the Center, hosted by LA ESCUELA  MoMA PS1, Museo Universitario del Chopo, Espacio Odeón, and La Nueva Fábrica, February 2026.

“Pressing Memory, Ironing Histories: Black Women’s Labor and Refusal in Damaris Cruz’s Las Planchadoras (2014).” Presented at The Latinx Project’s Graduate Student Working Group Symposium: Perspectives on Aesthetics, Sexuality, and Geography, New York University, New York City, United States. March 2025.

“Ancestral Landscapes Labs: Ancestral Landscapes Lab (ALL): Tracing Afro Puerto Rican Experiences through Memory and Place.” Presented at the Homo Sargassum International Symposium, Museum of Fine Arts, Florida State University, Florida, United States. March 2025.

“Resurgence of Puerto Rican Creole Architecture: Reviving Memories and Redefining Identities with Casa Borges,” Presented at the 2024 SESAH Conference. In panel: Vernacular Designs and Places. Marietta, United States. October 2024.

“Voices in Color: Damaris Cruz, Street Art, and the Reclamation of Afro-Puerto Rican Identity,” Presented at the Association of Art History Annual Conference. In panel: Shifting Grounds: Landscape and Cultural Practice in Latin America. Bristol, United Kingdom. April 2024.

Academic Experience

Facilitator, LA ESCUELA__Reading Club: Archipelagos of Memory: Connections, Crossings, and Shared Futures, 2026 Semester I

Intern, LA ESCUELA__ Internship Program, 2026 Semester I

Curatorial Writer, Decentered Reframed,  MFA Thesis Exhibition,  MoFA, Florida State University, Spring 2026

Co-Curator, Place-Within: Diasporic Belonging and Relational Memory, William Johnston Gallery, Florida State University, January–February 2026.

Co-Founder, The Ancestral Landscapes Lab (ALL), Digital Humanities Project, United States/ Puerto Rico, May 2024–Present

Guest Lecturer, Historia del Muralismo Puertorriqueño, Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan,Puerto Rico, May 2025

Peer Reviewer, Athanor, vol. XLI, Florida State University (FSU), Art History Department, Summer-Fall 2024/2025

Member, Historians of Puerto Rico Working Group, Hybrid/Remote, Rutgers-New Brunswick
School of Arts and Sciences, 2024 - Present

Graduate Assistant, Museum and Cultural Heritage Program, Florida State University (FSU), Art History Department, Summer 2024–Present

ART EXHIBITIONS

Radical Rage City, Stove Works Gallery (1250 E 13th St, Chattanooga, TN 37408)
August 2026–November 2026

Corrientes de deriva litoral, Teatro LATEA @ The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center (107 Suffolk St., New York, NY), June 2025–August 2026

Sueños, Exposición, Serie Jóvenes Afro, Museo Afro Casa Silvana, (Barrio Mambiche Prieto, Humacao, Puerto Rico), August 2024–September 2024

Trenzado Identidades, Museo Casa Escuté, Carolina, Puerto Rico (2023-2024); Centro Cultural Carmen Solá Pereira (2024), Ponce; y en la Escuela de Optometría de la Universidad Interamericana de Bayamón.
FEATURES

Memory, Space, [Be]longing: The Artistic Production of Estefanía Vallejo Santiago, by Carlos Ortiz Burgos, for RICANWRITINGS from CENTRO: The Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, January 02, 2026.

Diasporican Art in Motion - CENTRO: The Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College

‘Sueños’ en Casa Silvana en Humacao, Fundación Nacional para la Cultura Popular, 23 de agosto de 2024.  

“Trenzado Identidades” Collective of 30 Afro-Puerto Rican Artists in Puerto Rico, by  Elaine Gonzalez for SUGARCANE Magazine,
March 20, 2023. 



←4