Developed for and in conjunction with the Barrio Obrero-Marina community, and with the support of the Caño Martín Peña Land Trust, the ENLACE project and the G8. It consists of developing an artistic workspace in one of the schools closed by the Puerto Rico Department of Education (Colegio Santiago Iglesias Pantín), and which is now managed by the community, in order to support the reactivation of this space as one for the community and educational use.
The overall goal of this project is to establish a creative, collective, and collaborative workspace. In this space, together with the Barrio Obrero-Marina community and surrounding communities, we can develop creative projects for the future that meet the needs and interests of the community and, at the same time, serve as a meeting point between the creative work of the artists who will be part of it and the community.
The project supported the rehabilitation of two rooms within the Santiago Iglesias Pantín school—granted by the community board through a collaborative agreement—as a creative workshop space focused on graphic design, printmaking, and screen printing. This space also serves as a meeting place for artists and the community, fostering collaborative projects. Workshops were offered weekly, mostly on Saturdays, to young people from the community. As a result of these workshops, signs were created for community preservation using stencil and screen printing techniques.
Oscar Meléndez-Rivera (Bayamón, Puerto Rico, 1993) is a multidisciplinary artist. His practice currently focuses on printmaking—especially screen printing—and graphic design, as well as the use and development of images in and for public spaces, often exploring themes related to Puerto Rico's colonial social reality. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Humanities with a concentration in Visual Arts from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus. He was part of the first cohort of the Independent Studies Program (PEI) at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico (MACPR). He also received training in the development and entrepreneurship of creative industries through CEPA en Nuestro Barrio at the University of the Sacred Heart.
