WATERVILLE, ME .- Contemporary art brings together histories separated by oceans and generations in “Imagining an Archipelago: Art from Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Their Diasporas.” The exhibition, on view now through June 6, 2027 at the Colby College Museum of Art, includes approximately 50 sculptures, paintings, photographs and immersive video and multimedia installations, including six newly commissioned works. Each of the more than 40 artists featured have connections to the island communities of Cuba, Guam, the Philippines and Puerto Rico and use their artistic practice to consider the complexity of the American experience.
“Imagining an Archipelago” is the first major exhibition to use contemporary art to examine the impact of extending Manifest Destiny beyond North America. Challenging the common perception of the United States as a purely continental nation, the exhibition of approximately 50 works centers islands that came under U.S. control following the Treaty of Paris (1898) — and in the cases of Puerto Rico and Guam, remain so today.
Installation view of “Imagining an Archipelago: Art from Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Their Diasporas,” Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine, 2026. Photo: Art Index
A fully illustrated publication includes scholarly essays from the fields of art history and education that document and expand on the exhibition’s themes along with a timeline and transcripts of artist discussions translated and published in English, Spanish, Filipino and CHamoru. The book serves as a lasting teaching resource that lives beyond the exhibition’s tour.
“‘Imagining an Archipelago’ offers a poetic response to the histories and power structures that continue to shape our world,” said Jacqueline Terrassa, the Carolyn Muzzy director of the Colby College Museum of Art. “Whether subverting or reimagining the traditional narratives that have dominated each of their communities, the artists invite us to see archipelagos not as isolated islands, but as networks of connection.”
Installation view of “Imagining an Archipelago: Art from Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Their Diasporas,” Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine, 2026. Photo: Art Index
The exhibition’s themes include Food; Land, Sea and Sky; Religion and Spirituality; and Military Occupations, along with a major section organized geographically to highlight the uniqueness of each island. Concepts of cultural and political self-determination, indigeneity, migration, climate crisis and resilience unite the exhibition.
Several newly commissioned works are featured in the presentation, including projected text by Jerome Reyes, ceramics by Sara Jimenez, Mariquita “Micki” Davis’ large-scale cyanotype on canvas and Isa Gagarin’s painting on fused plastic. Camille Hoffman’s site-specific installation blends art and architecture into an immersive environment. Hoffman painted directly on the walls and floor and affixed found objects throughout a transitional corridor, linking the American art collection in the museum’s Lunder Wing to “Imagining an Archipelago.”
Installation view of “Imagining an Archipelago: Art from Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Their Diasporas,” Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine, 2026. Photo: Art Index
Many works in “Imagining an Archipelago” explore how history is constructed, remembered and interpreted. Stephanie Syjuco reworks archival photographs of Filipinos displayed at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair in the “Afterimages” series (2021). By folding and crumpling their reproductions before translating them into photogravures, she underscores the staged and fabricated nature of the originals. Gamaliel Rodriguez’s 2022 mixed-media work “Correctional Faith” centers a church that was part of Puerto Rico’s Cárcel Correccional de Menores de Cabo Rojo, a juvenile correctional prison that operated from 1908-2013. Today, the site has been transformed into a public recreation space, where traces of its past persist alongside new uses. Using acrylic, ink and gold leaf on paper, Rodriguez captures the emotional complexity between decay, memory and the legacies of colonial infrastructure.
In the photograph “Tai Ulu” (2021), Roquin-Jon Quichocho Siongco reflects on how CHamoru ancestors dealt with death, including the practice of preserving and venerating skulls, represented by the artist’s own headless nude body surrounded by culturally significant materials from the Mariana Islands. Cuban-born abstract painter Zilia Sánchez merges human, terrestrial and celestial forms in her 1975 painting “Lunar negro con tatuaje.” The composition evokes an ambiguity that could be perceived as constellations, ocean currents or bodily markings.
Installation view of “Imagining an Archipelago: Art from Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Their Diasporas,” Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine, 2026. Photo: Art Index
The exhibition was formed in close collaboration with artists through two Islands Project Convenings in 2022 and 2024, both held in Waterville, Maine and on Allen Island, part of Colby College’s Island Campus in Muscongus Bay. Shared meals at the gatherings inspired the inclusion of food as an exhibition theme, prompted through discussions about shared culinary traditions, food sovereignty and the impact of colonization on island agriculture. A video by Judith Escalona included in the exhibition documents the 2024 Islands Project Convening.
“From the beginning, the ‘Imagining an Archipelago’ project sought to center artists and invite them to shape the development of the exhibition,” said Jessamine Batario, the Linde Family Foundation curator of academic engagement at the Colby Museum. “The conceptual premise of an imagined archipelago guides creative connections between islands geographically located in different oceans and separated by thousands of miles. By juxtaposing a diversity of perspectives within a complex network of shared legacies, the exhibition visualizes a solidarity strengthened by difference.”
As the Colby College Museum of Art developed the exhibition, several relevant artworks entered the collection starting in 2023, including Gamaliel Rodríguez’s “Correctional Faith,”
Juan Sánchez’s “Aquí no hay luz,” Stephanie Syjuco’s “Afterimages” series, Enzo Camacho and Ami Lien’s “Social Volcano (restless waves)” and María Magdalena Campos-Pons’ “Freedom Trap.” Zilia Sánchez’s “Lunar negro con tatuaje (Black Moon with Tattoo),” which was already in the Colby Museum’s collection, serves as an artistic and conceptual anchor of the exhibition.
Installation view of “Imagining an Archipelago: Art from Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Their Diasporas,” Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine, 2026. Photo: Art Index
“Confronting and carrying histories of colonization can feel like a heavy burden. Yet so many of the inspiring artworks also convey a sense of lightness, through delicate materials or modes of installation,” said Batario. “Through this exhibition, I hope artists and viewers alike find opportunities for learning, healing and celebration.”
The exhibition publication includes contributions from Jessamine Batario, Lian Ladia, Alexandra Méndez, Craig Santos Perez, Stephanie Syjuco, Jacqueline Terrassa, Marina Tyquiengco with Fran Nededog Lujan, Adriana Zavala and Phoebe Zipper, with creative direction from Megan Carey, the Barbara Alfond director of exhibitions and publications. The historical timeline by Jan Maghinay Padios is presented like geological strata throughout the book, providing additional context about significant events and movements across Cuba, Guam, the Philippines and Puerto Rico through phases of colonialism, development, resistance and globalization. The book was designed by Kimberly Varella at Content Object, with help from Gabrielle Pulgar and is co-published and distributed domestically and internationally by DelMonico Books/D.A.P.
Installation view of “Imagining an Archipelago: Art from Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Their Diasporas,” Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine, 2026. Photo: Art Index
Following its debut at the Colby College Museum of Art, “Imagining an Archipelago” will embark on a national tour, including showings at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico in San Juan, Puerto Rico (Aug. 20 2027-Feb. 6, 2028), a presentation made possible by a generous grant from the Mellon Foundation; the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco (March 17-Aug. 13, 2028); and the Newark Museum of Art in New Jersey (Sept. 28, 2028-Feb. 18, 2029).
