Carlos La Sombra was a charismatic prisoners’ rights activist, anticolonialist, and Founder of the Ñetas, a prisoners’ organization. In 1974, he spoke to law students at the University of Puerto Rico. A recording of this talk has been recovered and made public. During this afternoon, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz will attempt to call up, talk to, play with, and break free the spirit of Carlos La Sombra using his powerful voice. The original audio recording of Carlos La Sombra was made by Gache Franco.

Beatriz Santiago Muñoz is an artist based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Her work draws from experiments in film, ethnography, and theater, and develops out of periods of observation and documentation in which the camera is present as an object with social implications and as an instrument mediating aesthetic thought. Subjects of her recent work have been politically fraught: an artist accused of terrorism, anarchist communities, mega-factories, the relationship between artwork and work, and the life of a concrete poet/union leader. Her work has been exhibited recently at the Mercosul Biennial, Brazil, San Juan Triennial Poligráfica, Glasgow International, and Tate Modern. She is Cofounder of Beta-Local.

“Hear, Here” Gallery Sessions is a series of public events that take place within the exhibition “Hear, Here” by Jeanine Oleson, presented in the Fifth Floor Gallery. The set and objects for an opera created by Oleson (to premiere in the New Museum Theater June 13–14) will be present during the run of the exhibition, forming an impromptu stage set and catalyst for this series. Each session is led by an invited guest or guests who react to the concepts and objects presented in the exhibition.