UArts Staff Member and Lecturer Awarded Latinx Artist Grant
March 2, 2020
On Feb. 20, the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC)―the premier nonprofit organization exclusively dedicated to the promotion, advancement, development and cultivation of the Latinx arts field in the U.S.―announced its grant awards for the work of Latinx artists and organizations taking place in 11 states and Puerto Rico in 2020. From a “record-number of applications,” UArts Media Resources Film Coordinator and Lecturer Raúl Romero was chosen to receive a NALAC Fund for the Arts Artist Grant in the amount of $10,000.
“At a time when issues of representation and cultural equity are front and center, we are proud to celebrate and support the work being created by Latinx artists in communities across the United States and Puerto Rico,” said NALAC President and CEO María López De León.
Romero’s Onomonopoetics of a Puerto Rican Landscape has been awarded $5,000 from the Velocity Fund Grant―an Andy Warhol Foundation regional regranting program―to explore the significance of el Coquí, the small iconic frog native to Puerto Rico. Sound sculptures installed on a prominent street in Philadelphia’s Puerto Rican neighborhood will play the calls of el Coquí, encouraging listeners to learn about each other and exchange memories. A version of the exhibition will also show at Locust Projects in Miami this fall.
Romero is a West Philadelphia-based contemporary visual and sound artist who uses “sound as a physical material.” Recently, Romero has been creating objects which explore the idea of “connections,” stemming from his early life in rural Florida and Puerto Rico.
“Intercommunication among us and our environment sits at the root of my practice,” Romero states in his artist bio. “I see sound as a multiplex medium where language, data and music takes form to create sonic experiences.”
Romero combines natural elements with technological―both analog and digital―and utilizes various media and materials. He plays with the intersections of time and space, and “the power of objects, images, language and the possibility of hidden worlds within and beyond our assumed realities.”
Romero graduated from Yale University School of Art with an MFA in Sculpture in 2018. He is currently a member of Vox Populi Gallery and has exhibited at the Contemporary Art Museum in Tampa; Delaware Contemporary in Wilmington; the Denver Contemporary Art Museum; the Kitchen in New York City; Land Gallery Collective in Philadelphia; Tampa Museum of Art, Transformer Gallery in Washington, D.C.; and Yale School of Art.