The Hemispheric Institute at New York University presents “Huracán Architectures,” a new exhibition by Puerto Rican photographer Ruben Natal-San Miguel, curated by Lisa Paravisini-Gebert. The opening reception takes place on Thursday, May 1, 2025, from 5:00 to 8:00pm, at the Hemispheric Institute (NYU) located at 20 Cooper Square, 5th floor.
Description: For almost a decade, Natal-San Miguel has situated his practice at the intersection of the island’s devastating financial crisis and the deterioration and disappearance of its vernacular architecture as a result of neglect, mass migration, and the catastrophic weather events that define climate change in the region. Beginning with his photographic series Paradise Ruined (2016), the artist has sought to capture the process through which Puerto Rico, in his own words, “already strained to the breaking point by financial woes, population exodus, widespread addiction, and two natural disasters, is entering a pivotal time in its history.”
In Huracán Architectures, Natal-San Miguel, a trained architect, captures this pivotal moment through his focus on the island’s vernacular architecture as both a hallowed marker of nationhood and an amalgam of traditions brought together through adaptations to the island’s environment and weather. The island’s vulnerability to climate events—hurricanes, floods, landslides, and the encroaching rising seas—is captured by Natal-San Miguel, whose photographs document the devastating effects of a misplaced economic austerity that has subjected the Puerto Rican population, as well as the built environment through which its cultural history has been expressed, to acute dislocation and loss. His images juxtapose the island’s luminous beauty, exuberant nature, and riotous colors, with the destruction wrought by a climate change generated in a first-world elsewhere.
The exhibition is part of “Hurricane Worlds,” a multi-year initiative led by Institute Director Ana Dopico that seeks to gather the epistemologies, world-making, and art-making of people who live and have lived in hurricane worlds. We look beyond environmental and climatological surveillance, state emergency management, and crisis capitalism to consider the ways of life and ways of knowing that hurricanes inaugurate. We consider how hurricanes build modes of sovereignty and care, and we seek to preserve the vernacular histories and communal archives that survive in hurricane time.
This is an in-person event that requires registration. All non-NYU attendees must RSVP in advance. Video documentation will be made available on the Institute website following the event.
Ruben Natal-San Miguel is a self-taught artist, architect, fine art photographer, curator, creative director, and critic who was born in Puerto Rico and now lives in New York City. His stature in the photo world has earned him awards, coverage in major media, and countless museum and gallery exhibitions. Before becoming an artist, Natal-San Miguel worked in finance and was in the World Trade Center when it was attacked by terrorists on September 11, 2001. Since surviving that terrible day, he has dedicated his life to making art that celebrates the lives of the marginalized and oppressed, especially LGBTQ+ and communities of color. His photographs are in the permanent collections of El Museo Del Barrio in NYC; The Center for Photography at Woodstock, NY; The Contemporary Collection of the Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina; The Time Out Youth, Charlotte, NC; The Bronx Museum for the Arts; School of Visual Arts, NYC; The Fitchburg Museum of Art, Massachusetts; The North Carolina Museum of Art at Raleigh, NC; The Minneapolis Institute of Art; The Leslie Lohman Museum of Art; The Studio Museum of Harlem; The Museum of The City of NY; The Provincetown Art Museum; The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Museum Center at Vassar College; Kruizenga Art Museum; Hope College, Michigan; The Griffin Museum for Photography; The Art Crawl of Harlem; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Colby Museum of Art at Colby College, Maine; Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa; The Newark Museum of Art, NJ; Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC; El Centro at Hunter College, NYC; and Wave Hill Art & Cultural Center, Riverdale, NYC.
Lisa Paravisini-Gebert is Professor of Caribbean culture and literature at Vassar College, where she holds the Sarah Tod Fitz Randolph Distinguished Professor Chair. She earned her B.A. from the University of Puerto Rico and her M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. from New York University. Her books include Phyllis Shand Allfrey: A Caribbean Life, Creole Religions of the Caribbean, and Extinctions: The Ecological Cost of Colonization in the Caribbean. She is the founder and co-editor of Repeating Islands, a popular digital publication on Caribbean culture, scholarship, and the arts. As a 2024-2025 Scholar in Residence at the Hemispheric Institute and Visiting Scholar at NYU, she will share her translation of Fernando Ortiz’s Huracán and bring together artists and scientists through her initiative Hurricane Praxis, which addresses climate change in the Caribbean.
For more information, see https://hemisphericinstitute.org/en/events/huracan-architectures.html#artist-and-curator
The Hemispheric Institute at New York University presents “Huracán Architectures,” a new exhibition by Puerto Rican photographer Ruben Natal-San Miguel, curated by Lisa Paravisini-Gebert. The opening reception takes place on Thursday, May 1, 2025, from 5:00 to 8:00pm, at the Hemispheric Institute (NYU) located at 20 Cooper Square, 5th floor. Description: For almost a decade, Natal-San
