CITICIEN BOOK

CITICIEN : The Jones-Shafroth Act : A 100 Year+ Mark on Puerto Rican Art

CITICIEN is a collective art project created and curated by Adrián "Viajero" Román, bringing together artists from Puerto Rico and its diaspora to examine the relationship between U.S. citizenship, Puerto Rican identity, and colonial power. Its name combines “citizen” with cien, the Spanish word for one hundred—a reference to both the original participating artists and the centennial of the Jones-Shafroth Act.

The exhibition first opened on March 2, 2017, at The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, exactly one hundred years after the act imposed U.S. citizenship on Puerto Ricans. Bringing together 100 artists from the island and diaspora, CITICIEN invited a collective reckoning with that history and its consequences. Each artist worked within shared dimensions and a black-and-white palette, creating a visual expression of solidarity while preserving the distinct perspective of every contributor.

The original exhibition included Antonio Martorell, Nitza Tufiño, Adál Maldonado, Juan Sánchez, Diógenes Ballester, Marcos Dimas, Miguel Luciano, Máximo Rafael Colón, Sofía Maldonado, Celso González, Betsy Casañas, Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez, Yasmín Hernández, among many others. Together, their works brought different generations and artistic practices into a shared conversation about belonging, displacement, resistance, and the power to define ourselves. Artist talks, workshops, films, interviews, and immersive media extended that conversation beyond the artworks, with Los Pleneros de la 21 contributing live music to the opening.

CITICIEN emerged during Puerto Rico’s debt crisis, austerity, and accelerating migration. PBS NewsHour’s March 2017 coverage situated the exhibition within those pressures, showing how artists connected political questions to intimate family histories. In Vagabond’s contribution, a photograph of his grandfather became a way to examine migration to New York and the contradictions of citizenship under colonial rule. Later that summer, Claridad described the exhibition’s works as an expression of anticolonial resistance to U.S. government abuses and PROMESA.

Following its debut at The Clemente, the exhibition traveled to Casa de Cultura Ruth Hernández Torres in Río Piedras, San Juan, and Seed on Diamond Gallery in Philadelphia. It later returned to New York for a presentation at Taller Boricua Gallery, housed in the Julia de Burgos Latino Arts Center in East Harlem, opening in January 2018. These presentations carried the conversation between Puerto Rico and its diaspora through spaces rooted in community and cultural expression.

The CITICIEN art book carries this work forward, expanding the original exhibition through additional artists, writers, and poets. Bringing together more than 100 contributors, it combines artwork with essays, poetry, and personal reflections to preserve a collective record of Puerto Rican experience.

This publication matters because it keeps these voices accessible beyond the exhibition’s temporary walls. It gives readers an opportunity to revisit the artworks, examine their historical context, and carry the conversation into homes, classrooms, and cultural spaces. By placing Puerto Rican perspectives at the center, CITICIEN preserves a history told by the people who live it. The book offers future generations a resource for understanding how artists confronted colonialism—and how cultural expression continues to sustain memory, solidarity, and the struggle for self-determination.

The official book launch will take place this fall!
Follow @citicien on Instagram for launch announcements, events, and project updates.

Contributors

My heartfelt thanks to the partners below, whose support and commitment helped make this book possible and preserve these Puerto Rican voices for generations to come.