Hanes Art Center exhibition transports viewers to the natural landscape of Puerto Rico

On Thursday, Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz debuted her newest exhibition, “Llevame Pa’l Monte” (The Mountains Are Calling and I Must Go) at the Hanes Art Center. 

The collection features a series of primarily black and white drawings depicting the natural landscape of Puerto Rico. 

For Raimundi-Ortiz, the collection is a way to stay rooted in her Puerto Rican heritage. 

“A lot of her work is about her identity, her culture and also about navigating the places she’s traversed. Always going back to her roots,” art curator Dorothy Moss, who has known Raimundi-Ortiz since 2016, said. 

The lines in each work are clear and bold in some areas but then fade to wisps in others. This hazy, dissolving visual effect functions as a commentary on cultural erasure. 

“We’re looking at a steady quasi-invasion of the islands, cryptocurrency, people buying up properties and infiltrating in a very different way; folks that are there are struggling between the hurricanes, earthquakes and all the other natural disasters,” Raimundi-Ortiz said. “Folks are fleeing just because they’re trying to survive.” 

The works are inspired by photographs taken on her recent trip back to the island. She recalled the feeling of being enveloped by the river and tree canopies of El Yunque, describing it as an embrace. The large scale of the art aims to harness this sensation of feeling small, yet welcomed, in nature. 

Raimundi-Ortiz hopes that audiences will take away an understanding of the beauty and mystery of the island, as well as the seduction of the landscape. 

She said she is exploring a new side of her artistry with this exhibition. She admits that in the past, her work was often centered around pain, interrogating systems and “pissing people off.” 

Now, she is compelled to explore joy in her work. 

“It's okay for me to sit in the fact that I’ve arrived, that I don’t have to pick open scabs to validate my existence as an art maker or to prove my validity to other people,” she said. 

The first and largest work in the set is a self-portrait in which Raimundi-Ortiz poses nude and smiling in front of the roots of a large tree. While her past works embodied this tone of antagonism and toughness, this work epitomizes vulnerability. 

Raimundi-Ortiz is creating a corresponding project titled “Vamonos pa'l monte” (Let’s Go to the Mountains). This will be a performance art demonstration taking place during celebrations of America’s 250th anniversary in 2026. She and other participants will journey away from Independence Hall in Philadelphia and toward the predominantly Puerto Rican Norris Square neighborhood. 

Raimundi-Ortiz will wear a processional costume during the demonstration that features ecological and historical elements of Puerto Rico. Throughout the nearly four-mile trek, participants will accumulate culturally significant items and artifacts and carry them to “el monte,” or the mountain top, the final destination. 

Growing up in New York, Raimundi-Ortiz’s mother did her best to keep their heritage relevant in their lives. Now, Raimundi-Ortiz aims to give her son that same experience, but worries about the potency of their culture fading over time. 

“Like anyone who’s worked off of copy, the first copy degenerates,” she said. “The second copy degenerates more. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm giving him a cheap copy, you know?”

The completion of “Llevame Pa’l Monte” has helped her to enhance her son’s cultural experience: 

“I figured if I learned the land better through these drawings, then I can talk to him more accurately,” she said.

“Llevame Pa’l Monte” especially resonated with audiences who also share a connection to Puerto Rico. 

“It’s honestly a lot of nostalgia,” viewer Vanessa Sanders Tapoada said. “I’m from Puerto Rico myself, and it’s been almost 10 years since I've been back to the island. Seeing all the plants and stuff, the matas and different trees, brings a feeling of home and remembrance.” 

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