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# Grafting Puerto Rican Architecture onto the Lower East Side
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/grafting-puerto-rican-architecture-onto-the-lower-east-side/
- Published: 2016-04-27T22:11:36.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T15:58:20.000Z
- Description: Edra Soto attempts architectural transplants the way a doctor might replace skin, seeing if an unfamiliar addition will take.
- Author: Allison Meier
- Tags: Art, Architecture, Lower East Side, Puerto Rico, Review, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:17 (2016, 2017, part 1)

![Installation view of 'Graft' by Edra Soto at Cuchifritos Gallery (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic unless noted)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/04/graftshow03.jpg)

Installation view of ‘Graft’ by Edra Soto at Cuchifritos Gallery (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic unless noted)

[Edra Soto](http://edrasoto.com/home.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) attempts architectural transplants the way a doctor might replace skin, seeing if an unfamiliar addition will take. Since 2013 in a [project](http://edrasoto.com/section/432661-Graft.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) titled [*Graft*](http://artistsallianceinc.org/cuchifritos-gallery-2/on-view?ref=hyperallergic.com), the Puerto Rico-born, Chicago-based artist has relocated the geometric patterns of *rejas* screens from her home territory to settings in the mainland. Currently, an experimental attachment is underway at *Graft’*s first New York iteration, at Artists Alliance Inc.’s [Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space](http://artistsallianceinc.org/cuchifritos-gallery-2/on-view?ref=hyperallergic.com) in Essex Street Market.

![Installation view of 'Graft' by Edra Soto at Cuchifritos Gallery](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/04/graftshow02.jpg)

Installation view of ‘Graft’ by Edra Soto at Cuchifritos Gallery (click to enlarge)

A large *reja* pattern overtakes the Cuchifritos window in the Lower East Side food market, with two pastel-hued wooden tributes to San Juan bus stops inside, their backs a lattice of lines and circles. In between, a matching stand has newspapers published by Chicago’s [Sector 2337](http://sector2337.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com) with images of screens in Puerto Rico and essays in English and Spanish discussing the history of *rejas*. Soto is not just celebrating the dynamic patterns of these screens, but also considering the Spanish influence that first brought the ironwork techniques to safeguard colonial homes in Puerto Rico, and the evolution of the *rejas* into a popular midcentury ornament on porches and balconies that let the breeze flow through. It’s also, albeit indirectly, a physical reminder of the current crisis in Puerto Rico, where the [Zika virus](http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices/alert/zika-virus-puerto-rico?ref=hyperallergic.com) is looming and the island’s debt [stands at $72 billion](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/opinion/sunday/only-congress-can-rescue-puerto-rico.html?ref=hyperallergic.com). (The exhibition happens to close on May 1, the [final date set](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-puertorico-debt-pelosi-idUSKCN0XB1ZW?ref=hyperallergic.com) for potential congressional legislation to address the debt.)

Curator [Albert Stabler](http://bertstabler.com/home.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) poses the central question of *Graft* in his newspaper essay: “Can a nation that has so freely appropriated the land and resources of Puerto Rico, while consigning its residents to second-class citizenship and exorbitant government debt, be itself appropriated as a screen upon which Soto can project the (wooden) screens of her [Boricua](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=boricua&ref=hyperallergic.com) childhood?” The Lower East Side “graft” follows Soto’s interventions in Chicago, including enclosing the porch of the bungalow in Oak Park [that serves as the Terrain art space](http://art.newcity.com/2013/04/02/review-edra-sototerrain/?ref=hyperallergic.com) and the [windows of Corner Gallery](http://edrasoto.com/section/433447-Relocating-Techniques.html?ref=hyperallergic.com). Working with her husband and fellow artist [Dan Sullivan,](http://www.navilluswoodworks.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com) Soto’s *Graft* will be incorporated into Chicago’s Western Avenue train station through a commission from the Chicago Transit Authority. Each site-specific edition of *Graft* responds to the friction of merging this island design onto a piece of the mainland.

![Installation view of 'Graft' by Edra Soto at Cuchifritos Gallery](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/04/graftshow04.jpg)

Installation view of ‘Graft’ by Edra Soto at Cuchifritos Gallery

![Edra Soto, "Photo Documentation (Cement Bus Stop, San Juan, Puerto Rico)" (2016) (courtesy the artist)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/04/prbusstop.jpg)

Edra Soto, “Photo Documentation (Cement Bus Stop, San Juan, Puerto Rico)” (2016) (courtesy the artist)

Journalist Andy Sullivan adds in an essay:

> Like 4.7 million of her fellow Puerto Ricans, Edra Soto lives on the mainland now. Her fence may not bring to mind a 700-mile barrier as much as the shuttered storefronts and condos that are growing ever more common as Puerto Ricans flee their island. It’s a potent symbol of a place that has suffered as well as prospered in the embrace of a country that invaded 115 years ago.

*Graft* at Cuchifritos is meant to be a meeting place, where people can read the newspapers at the bus stop structures. However, when the gallery is empty, the space feels a bit vacant with the blank space on the walls, and little else besides the two structures and newspaper stand. For the project to have its full effect, there’s definitely a minimum level of engagement needed for viewers to delve into the context. In a way, it’s similar to Liene Bosquê and Nicole Seisler’s 2015 exhibition [*Shifting Impressions*](http://hyperallergic.com/195077/impressions-of-new-york-city-streets-captured-in-clay/), also at Cuchifritos, in which the duo roamed the Lower East Side with a cart and clay to take impressions of the built environment. Soto is asking viewers to explore a larger history through just a glimpse of the architecture that supports it, and is using vernacular design to cross the boundaries that keep Puerto Rico separate, even as it remains part of the United States.

![Installation view of 'Graft' by Edra Soto at Cuchifritos Gallery](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/04/graftshow01.jpg)

Installation view of ‘Graft’ by Edra Soto at Cuchifritos Gallery

![Cover of the 'Graft' newspaper](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/04/graftpaper01.jpg)

Cover of the ‘Graft’ newspaper

![Inside the 'Graft' newspaper](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/04/graftpaper02.jpg)

Inside the ‘Graft’ newspaper

![Inside the 'Graft' newspaper](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/04/graftpaper03.jpg)

Inside the ‘Graft’ newspaper

[Edra Soto: Graft](http://artistsallianceinc.org/cuchifritos-gallery-2/on-view?ref=hyperallergic.com) *continues through May 1 at* [*Cuchifritos Gallery*](http://artistsallianceinc.org/?ref=hyperallergic.com) *(120 Essex Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan).*