Chemi Rosado Seijo

The Puerto Rican artist Chemi Rosado Seijo (1973, San Juan) has, just like Sorensen, graduated in painting although he mainly concentrates on site-specific and project-based work now. For his project 'El Cerro' in the Puerto Rican mountain village Naranjito, of which photographs and documentation will be shown in The Bakery, Rosado Seijo turns to painting to create art with a social-political function. With 'El Cerro' he tries to turn a whole community into an artwork  by giving it another story than the one of  the village that struggles with drugs, safety and unemployment problems. Rosado Seijo is doing this by painting the houses of Naranjito green together with the local population. A possible interpretation is that the troubled village can hereby disappear into the surrounding mountains, no longer plagued by its bad reputation. Another possible reading is that it will reach the media in a positive way - in its newly painted disguise. The inhabitants were a little suspicious at first: Latin America has a tradition of political parties bribing poor citizens into having their houses painted in the colors of a political party - only for a small financial reward. Rosado Seijo succeeded - bit by bit and with a lot of talking - in persuading  the inhabitants of his interest-free deed and managed to turn them into enthusiastic participants. In the meantime about 70% of the village has been painted and other institutions (health and education services) have organised other projects for the inhabitants. And the painting continues...