Impresión de Resistencia

2026, 26 mins

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This documentary explores printmaking in Puerto Rico as a living practice shaped by education, resistance, and daily life under an ongoing colonial condition. 

It centers the pivotal role of the División de Educación de la Comunidad (DIVEDCO), whose artists transformed printmaking into a powerful tool for public education, cultural affirmation, and collective memory in the mid-twentieth century.

Through the voices of contemporary Puerto Rican printmakers, the film addresses precarity, migration, and institutional neglect, while examining why printmaking—accessible, reproducible, and deeply rooted in community—continues to matter on the island.

Drawing on archival materials from the Museo de Antropología, Historia y Arte and the Lazaro Library of la Universidad de Puerto Rico, the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (Rio Piedras campus), the Library of Congress, and the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, alongside interviews with artists including Poli Marichal and Fernando Santiago, the documentary traces an active, ongoing dialogue between past, present, and future.

Produced with support from Print Austin, Speedball Art Products, Southern Graphic Council International, Hello Print Friend Studios, and the generous donations of people around the world.

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Alexis Figueroa aka “La Cabra” is a Puerto Rican cultural advocate, best known for founding and operating Trailer Park Proyects (TPP), an alternative art space located in San Juan, Puerto Rico founded in 2012 with artist Jorge Rito Cordero. Through TPP, Figueroa has played a pivotal role in promoting contemporary Puerto Rican art, particularly focusing on printmaking and silkscreen works that are created to promote accessible art for everyone. The initiative aims to provide a platform for emerging artists to exhibit their work without the constraints of commercial galleries, emphasizing artistic expression over marketability. TPP Gallery has participated in various art fairs and art festivals like Scope, ArteBA, Circa and Santurce es Ley.

Javier Moreno González is a visual artist and educator who lives and works in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He currently teaches visual arts in the public school system and has worked with various non-profit organizations, leading art workshops for underserved communities.

His creative practice encompasses painting, drawing, and printmaking, with the latter being his primary discipline. Through his work, Javier offers a critical reflection on current processes of social transformation and the complex political relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States.

Poli Marichal utilizes different mediums such as printmaking, painting, mixed media, film and video to make works that explore social, political and environmental issues. Marichal received her B.A. in printmaking at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas de San Juan, Puerto Rico and her MFA at Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. A two-year scholarship from the Institute of Puerto Rican culture allowed her to study medieval painting techniques at La Escola Massana in Barcelona from 1974-76. In 1979, she studied with painter Cecil Collins in London City LIT. She has been recipient of grants from, among others, the Santa Monica Cultural Affairs Department, The Puerto Rico Film Commission, the Rockefeller Media Arts Fellowship, the Massachusetts Council for the Arts Media Grant and the National Endowment for the Humanities in Puerto Rico and participated in projects funded by grants from the Mike Kelley Foundation and the Rauschenberg Foundation. She is one of the founders of Los de Abajo Printmaking Collective, a group of artists that specialized in collaborative large format prints and that were part of the acclaimed Chicano Latino Arts Center, Self-Help Graphics & Art in Los Angeles, where she lived for thirty years.

Miranda K. Metcalf holds a bachelor's degree in philosophy and a master's degree in art history with a focus on printmaking. She has held the directorship of arts organizations in Australia, Thailand, and the United States in both commercial and non-profit institutions and serves on the board of Print Austin. She is the director and founder of Hello, Print Friend Studios. 

Fraíxa Albizu Rodríguez was born in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, on December 20, 1996. She completed her bachelor's degree at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Diseño de Puerto Rico in 2020 and is currently doing a master's degree in cultural administration at the University of Puerto Rico. She is the founder of Ciclos Gráficos, a non-profit organization that aims to promote the exchange of prints with artists of all backgrounds through the creation of exchange portfolios.

Reinaldo Gil Zambrano is an award-winning printmaking artist from Caracas, Venezuela, in Spokane, WA. Reinaldo is currently an associate professor of Printmaking at Gonzaga University, Co-founder of the Spokane Print & Publishing Center, and former Art Commissioner for the state of Washington.

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