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Liz Volchok


Puerto Rico / Philadelphia



In September 2017 Hurricane Maria, a category five tropical hurricane, struck the island of Puerto Rico leaving it unrecognizable. While Maria ravished the island’s physical infrastructure, it also exposed the extent of Puerto Rico’s existing colonial status: long-standing systematic issues within it’s socio-political infrastructure, a dire economic crisis, an out-dated power grid, and how unprepared the federal government was to respond to the aftermath of Maria.

This body of work showcases efforts made between myself and a team of planners, architects, and landscape architects within three interconnected but desparate studios: a semester-long interdiscplinary studio that took to understand the aftermath of Hurricane Maria and it’s exodus to Philadelphia; a semester-long practicum that worked to address concerns within local Puerto-Rican community development organizations and non-profits in Philadelphia, and an independent year-long research thesis project that analyzed the Puerto Rican Vernacular on the Island and it’s correspondence to the Mainland.

This work was done on behalf of the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design programs in City and Regional Planning and Historic Preservation. 
Murals on boarded up buildings, Old San Juan. A year post-Maria with water-soiled household and personal possessions out front, San Juan. Crumbling infrastructure, Utuado. A bridge spanning over the Lago Dos Bocas Dam, a hydroelectric generation facility, between the municipalities of Arecibo and Utuado. A mural that reads “Promise Is Poverty,” a reference to the Financial Oversight and Management Board imposed by Congress, Old San Juan. Murals representing Puerto Rican identities: the Puerto Rican Flag and the Jibaro, a self-subsistence farmer, Utuado. “Norma ni Maria ni nadie nos quitara lo nuestro fideicomiso de la tierra,” “Neither Norma, nor Maria, nor anyone else will take away our trust from the land,” “Reclama tus derechos fideicomiso de la tierra” “Claim your land trust rights,” San Juan. The Puerto Rican flag painted on a fallen tree, San Juan. Local street art and murals on abandoned concrete foundation walls, San Juan. Deteriorating infrastructure, Utuado. Ongoing renovations adjacent to Plaza Colón, Old San Juan. Puerto Rican flag painted on a corner site, Utuado.
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