ART + Research & Survival

I hold a combined Bachelor’s degree in Architecture, Anthropology and Archaeology, and Sociology of Culture from the University of Puerto Rico, a Master of Arts in Education with a focus on Museum Studies, and I am currently a PhD Candidate in Sustainable Heritage (MPhil/PhD) at University College London.

My artistic practice began in early childhood through sculpture, guided by my aunt, sculptor Carmen Collazo-Ortiz, who taught me to understand life through clay and to recognize beauty in everyday materials. From a young age, drawing the human figure became both a way of observing the world and processing emotion, fostering an early ability to distinguish observation from perception that continues to inform my work. Alongside drawing, I developed a sustained practice in painting, particularly with acrylics, and long held the desire to be both a doctor and an artist, two paths rooted in care. I initially pursued medicine before transitioning to architecture, recognising it as a way to support others who, like myself, had experienced instability and the absence of home at some point in life.

At the age of fifteen, I entered Puerto Rico’s foster care system. This period was followed by living through Hurricane Maria, the subsequent earthquakes, and the COVID-19 pandemic, experiences that deeply shaped my understanding of vulnerability, adaptation, and collective survival. Art became a means of survival through reflection, and sense making, forming the foundation of an interdisciplinary practice in which creative work and research converge to examine care, heritage, and adaptive human systems.

After participating in collective exhibitions since 2010 and beginning my PhD in 2021, it became increasingly clear to me that the scientific method alone cannot fully sustain formal reasoning around creative adaptation, embodied intelligence, or ethical action beyond moral prescription. Its limitations make it insufficient for understanding processes of human transformation that depend on sensitivity, imagination, and creative flexibility. In response, my work seeks to advance a rounded and deeply human approach to meaning making, positioning creative practice as a legitimate mode of knowledge production capable of engaging with social transformation, uncertainty, and the future of human systems.