Puerto Rico

Overview

Puerto Rico is home to a thriving arts and humanities sector, despite years of disinvestment by government and private philanthropy and a recent series of natural and human-made disasters.  A United States territory in Caribbean space, Puerto Rico is also a place where many of the Foundation’s strategic priorities intersect in complex and interdisciplinary ways.  Our Puerto Rico initiative aims to sustain and enrich the archipelago’s vibrant cultural, knowledge, and memory ecosystems and the individuals who work within them.  In collaboration with dedicated partners in Puerto Rico and its diaspora, our grantmaking activities are designed to redress past underfunding, address urgent needs, and build sustainable artistic, educational, intellectual, cultural, and archival infrastructure for the future.

Goals

Through our work in Puerto Rico and its diaspora, we seek to:

• Create sustainable cultural opportunities:  Develop opportunities for artists, curators, scholars, educators, archivists, conservators, and other culture workers who want to live and work in Puerto Rico to do so, and to circulate their work beyond the archipelago.
• Build capacity:  Strengthen local and diasporic arts, culture, and humanities organizations through the development of infrastructure and shared administrative services, and provide operational support and professional training.
• Elevate voices and fortify networks:  Lift up the scholarly and cultural contributions of previously marginalized voices in Puerto Rico and its diaspora and strengthen networks between and among them.