Puerto Rico 2016-2018: La Isla Abandonada
This project is about the island of Puerto Rico, before and after Hurricanes Irma and Maria. I have previously photographed Puerto Rico in 2016. For my project I am exploring my heritage as well as the people with whom I identify culturally with. I have revisited the island post disasters and have visually analyzed how the island once was, as well as the aftermath of the island after Hurricane Irma and Maria. Through my previous photographs I capture the individuals as well as the place and environment around them, to see where culture falls parallel to their individuality. I documented some places on the island that have been abandoned and homes that people have walked away from because of Puerto Rico’s economic state. I also captured daily life around the island, cities and smaller towns as well as the people who make up the beautiful island.
Throughout this project I have continued to capture the people of Puerto Rico as well as the places in which they define their community. Along with the previous images of the island, I have revisited parts that may appear different now compared to the photos from before the disasters or have not changed at all. In my observations I hope to bring to light the effects of hurricanes Irma and Maria as well as the state of the island despite the natural disasters. I’ve visually analyzed the island being pushed into further abandonment due to lack of resources and economical help from the U.S. government. As someone who is Puerto Rican and has family that resides there, I have both an outsider and insider's point of view to the current state of the island. Through these visual observations I invite the viewers to engage with a part of America that is often forgotten.
This series of photographs is to bring light to the state of the island and the people while taking into consideration that Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory. So many people have lost their homes, have no clean running water, have no supplies that are needed, medical help is dire and so much more. Is Puerto Rico being helped? How are the people who call this place their home surviving? Will Puerto Rico ever be the same? These are just some things I question visually. I shoot from a domestic point of view capturing family as well as people I met along the way and the architecture around the island, what remains and what is no longer there anymore through visual documentation. Along with the photographs I transformed the space in which the photos reside, in a DIY installation. Here the viewer is met with the environment in which I have created by referencing the photos of the island and what I experienced visually on my trips there. This goes hand in hand with bringing the place into a space like a gallery where it is not usually seen or experienced, allowing the audience to be immersed into my visual representation of Puerto Rico.
Crystal Frias
Lost in time
With the use of narrative self portraiture I question time as well as place specifically a home where mental illness dwells. Through long exposures I capture these seconds in time where I exist and where I don't, where I have existed and where my mind may cease to exist in places where we all call our safe place, home; as well as a place of solitude. the figure in the images in a sense is the mind and how quickly time passes and effects us mentally. I try and grip to reality as it slips away through these time and space based images
God for Sale, 2016
Ever since I can remember I had some fixation on a higher power, something more and while others may feel the same way, some feel like I may be ignorant and naïve because I choose to place my belief in a higher power, something I can’t see. I attended a Christian youth service every Friday for 3 years at my own will. Although my belief in god grew stronger, my belief in organized religion deteriorated. I began to see the hypocrisy that came with the people that claimed to be the most “holy”. Everyone I knew there hid behind some sort of mask in order to look good in front of others but you can’t fool god. I decided to leave the church but continue to be a believer. This series is my exploration on the sacred and profane and where they both collide in our world today. Matthew 6:19 says “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal”. Material things are seen as fleeting according to the bible and reality, I chose to focus on religious novelties because they both meet at the cross section of the sacred and profane. Belief and God are cheapened in society because of constant use and production of small statues, candles, jewelry, murals of angels, saints, Jesus, or any religious or spiritual entities that are made for consumers to purchase and place their belief on. Religion and spirituality have been diluted and have become something you can purchase right next to porcelain doll or scented candle at your local discount store. Something sacred becomes just something decorative, placing the materialistic at the level of divinity in exchange for money, which is similar to when the catholic church absolved sins for a fee, thus placing monetary value above a higher power. Contradictory to the fact of idolization people tend to fixate their belief on these objects which in this case the objects are the profane because they are usually purchased along with an everyday ordinary object yet are sacred because of what the religious object depicts and what significance people tend to place on these objects. Each photograph goes hand in hand with the next, placing God at a low level, cheapened by discount store shelves, where mythical Santa statues occupy top shelves while statues of baby Jesus and a crucifix are shelves below, just one of the many things I come across and depict in this series.
