In the third episode of the season we talked to Puerto Rican curator and writer Sharmyn Cruz Rivera. As with all our guests this season, we discuss her views on the exhibition and the ways her practice aims to expand the boundaries of exhibition-making, with an emphasis on collaborations and dialogue. Sharmyn also explains to us how she listens to the exhibition, and we discuss how sound and listening resist the traditional exhibition structure of containment. We also talk about the ways communities are often taken for granted within an exhibition framework and how listening helps us tap into the world around us in different ways.

In our introductory short conversation with Eloise we talk about enchantment and exhibitions where we had that experience lately.

About our guest: Sharmyn Cruz Rivera is a Puerto Rican curator and writer based in Rotterdam. Her curatorial practice seeks to expand the boundaries of exhibition-making to make way for emerging formats of interdisciplinary collaboration, presentation, and dialogue. Her work explores the politics of identity under the conditions of modernity, colonialism, and capitalism and how subversion manifests in creative acts of refusal. She often tackles the legacy of colonisation within the Caribbean context through the lens of contemporary artistic production and strategies of redress.

If you have feedback we’d love to receive your email at [email protected]; you can also follow us on Instagram @ihopethismessage. The jingle was made by the artist Natalia Solzano and sound engineering by Nick Thomas. Graphic design by Christophe Clarijs.

We have launched our I Hope This Message Finds You Well t-shirts, get them via our Everpress campaign: everpress.com/i-hope-this-message

The episode was recorded in January 2024.

Show notes:

Sharmyn Cruz Rivera https://www.sharmyncruzrivera.com/Nibia Pastrana Santiago https://www.nibiapastrana.com/ Daniel Giles https://www.pzwart.nl/blog/2020/04/01/danny-giles/ The Josephine Baker house by Adolf Loos https://www.architectural-review.com/essays/loos-and-baker-a-house-for-josephineFluister de Wind Waarop at De Appel https://www.deappel.nl/en/archive/events/1139-fluister-de-wind-waaropLampo, Chicago https://lampo.org/ The Art Ensemble of Chicago https://www.artensembleofchicago.com/ Sun Ra Pauline OliverosMax Neuhaus Connie Fredericks-Malone https://conniefredericksmalone.com/Fuga, curated by Sharmyn at Shimmer https://shimmershimmer.org/ Félix González-Torres https://www.felixgonzalez-torresfoundation.org/