Curated by Adriano Pedrosa, artistic director, MASP, and Fernando Oliva, curator, MASP.

The Museum of the Old Colony is a large installation examining persistent and unshakable colonial structures through the lens of Puerto Rico, an island that has experienced over five hundred years of colonial influence and rule. Conceived by Puerto Rican artist Pablo Delano, it includes myriad objects, photographs, newspapers, films, and magazines that tell stories related to Spanish and American domination of indigenous and native communities, as well as people of African descent. The title of the installation ironically references the complicity of museums and a popular American soft drink in Puerto Rico while highlighting how U.S. power and presence are based on colonial exploitation, social hygiene, and racial hierarchy. These concepts are materialized through the circulation of goods, people, and values and the recruitment of anthropologists, missionaries, photographers, and politicians who sustain the colonial matrix.