Jo Cosme

Lives and works in Seattle, WA

Artist statement

Jo Cosme is a Boricua multimedia artist from Borikén, Puerto Rico, currently based in Seattle after being displaced by Hurricane María. Working across photography, sound, video, and interactive media, her practice examines colonialism, displacement, tourism, and the construction of paradise under more than five centuries of colonial subjugation. Her ongoing body of work, Welcome to Paradise: ¡Viva Puerto Rico Libre!, emerged from confronting how Puerto Rico’s colonial reality is often obscured by images of leisure and escape. Through immersive installations and mixed-media works, Cosme repurposes the visual language of tourism and advertising to expose the tensions hidden beneath the island’s manufactured image as paradise. Centered on the persistence and resistance of the Puerto Rican people, her work foregrounds lived experience, cultural survival, and the importance of indigenous land stewardship.

Artwork