SPRING THEATER & ARTS PREVIEW Edra Soto’s Graft project comes to the Hyde Park Art Center

The Puerto Rican artist treats her roots as a blueprint.

By ALLY FOUTS

“Prolific” understates the artworks artist Edra Soto has contributed to the cultural scene, radiating from Chicago and stretching to New York, California, Brazil, and beyond. Born in Puerto Rico, Soto treats her roots as a blueprint, building expansive bodies of work upon the boundless inspiration she finds within them.

Over the course of the previous decade, Soto has been expanding upon one of her most recognizable projects, Graft. The series includes sculptures and reliefs of iron screens, or rejas, that are pervasive in the postwar architecture of Puerto Rico. By transplanting this form and placing it in the United States, Soto dissects her identity as a Puerto Rican artist, extracting a treasure chest of artworks as a result. In late April, Graft will be making another appearance in Chicago, in her highly anticipated solo exhibition, “Edra Soto: Destination/El Destino: a decade of Graft,” at the Hyde Park Art Center.

“‘Destination/El Destino’ brings together a decade of the Graft project,” Soto wrote over email. “The exhibition is anchored by an immersive sculpture composed of handmade motifs and fragments. Each fragment is a study or the remains of a larger iteration of Graft.”

Regardless of location, each iteration of Graft o ers a few consistent points of entry for the viewer within the rejas structure. There is often a bench embedded into the sculpture, o ering viewers a place to rest, contemplate, and engage with one another. Additionally, there is often a publication element that includes collaborative essays written by people of many disciplines that reflect or relate to

Graft conceptually. Finally, viewfinders set in the walls of the rejas sculpture depict nostalgic images relating to family and the Puerto Rico diaspora.

One particularly powerful aspect of Graft is that it is often implemented in public spaces, such as the Chicago Cultural Center, welcoming people of all demographics and backgrounds to come together and interact with the work. This o ers an element of chance and can lead to unpredictable outcomes not available within the constraints of a gallery space. In previous installments, this has resulted in stunning, surprising collaborations between Soto and other creatives.

“It is incredibly rewarding when the artistic community reaches out either by proposing collaboration or as a spontaneous gesture,” Soto wrote. The Seldoms, a local dance com- pany, reached out to the artist to propose collaborating on a performance at Screenhouse, an iteration of Graft that’s installed in Millennium Park. “The beautiful and inventive choreography they performed at Screenhouse responded to the Graft ’s architectural elements and its sense of home or shelter.”

The latest installment of Graft resides at the Whitney Museum of American Art as part of the exhibition “no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria,” on view until April 23. This exhibition has received ample exposure that expands beyond in-person viewers due to the power of social media.

“One of my favorite kinds of collaboration happens when the public viewing the work tries to capture a photo or video of the archival documents in the viewfinders embedded

R “DESTINATION/EL DESTINO: A DECADE OF GRAFT”

Through 8/6 : Mon-Thu 10 AM-7 PM, Fri 10 AM- 4:30 PM, Sat 10 AM- 4 PM, Sun 10 AM-1:30 PM, Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell, hydeparkart.org, free