Caribbean artist and community organizer Michelle Nonó will discuss the role of social practice art in struggles for equality, visibility and political change. Nonó and her sister compose Las Nietas de Nonó, a performance collective that also runs an alternative art and community space in a house inherited from their grandfather in the industrial zone of San Antón, Puerto Rico. The sisters describe the center, known as Patio Taller, as a site for emancipatory education in a Freyrean model, where community members can both learn and teach according to their own abilities, needs, and interests. They also host residencies for other Caribbean artists and activists. Las Nietas are perhaps best known for popular theater productions, which address issues relevant to the community such as drug abuse, violence and incarceration, and the cycle of poverty and discrimination that feed these behaviors.
 
Nonó will be included in the exhibition “Revolution at Point Zero: Feminist Social Practice” opening in March at the Glass Curtain Gallery in Chicago. Last year she had a Jackman Goldwasser Residency at the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago. The sisters were also invited to the fourth edition of Casa Tomada, a meeting of young artists, writers and thinkers 2017 in Havana, Cuba, September 2017.