Borikén: This Island Needs a Tidal Wave, Una Ola Gigante
Jesse Ilan Kornbluth | Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico
Photographer: Jesse Ilan Kornbluth
Exhibit Title: Borikén: This Island Needs a Tidal Wave, Una Ola Gigante
Location: Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico
This Island Needs a Tidal Wave is a deep photographic exploration of Puerto Rico: The intersection of it's colonial legacy, mestizo island culture, and modern independence movement.
Puerto Rico exists within a unique liminal state - American enough to pay federal taxes, but not American enough to have the right to vote in the general elections...A persisting colonial legacy in which Puerto Ricans cannot independently author their own future or fate.
Over recent years, there has been a resurgence of the Puerto Rican independence movement, catastrophic natural disasters, rapid gentrification, and widespread government corruption. Beyond the archipelago, Puerto Rico has re-introduced itself to the world through music.
This project is a vignette into a moment of great change, the unique forms of Boricua self expression, and the ongoing fight to shake off its colonial yoke.
Note: The title is borrowed from an infamous 1931 letter written by Dr. Cornelius Rhoads - an American physician in Puerto Rico employed by the Rockefeller Institute: "What the island needs is not a public health work, but a tidal wave or something to totally exterminate the entire population..."
My name is Jesse Ilan Kornbluth, I am documentary photographer, writer, and researcher based in Brooklyn, New York.
I am an alum of the International Center of Photography's one-year intensive documentary photography and visual journalism program and the 2024 Eddie Adams Workshop. I earned a bachelor's degree in sociocultural anthropology and a master’s in international relations.
I spent my early career working in international development and human rights across Latin America, India, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, and at the Brookings Institution, where I wrote about global geopolitics and human rights at Brookings's Foreign Policy program.
My work explores intergenerational trauma, tradition, cultural expression, conflict, and diasporic experiences in a modern context. My primary guiding principles as a visual artist are a deep sense of empathy and a rigorous dedication to creating spaces for constructive exchange between ideological opponents.
I sit on several NGO advisory boards, am a frequent guest speak in university and high school classrooms, and participate in mentorship programs for disadvantaged youth in New York City.
Along with my photography, I also do a bit of writing. Some work is linked below.
https://medium.com/@textstomyself
https://www.brookings.edu/people/jesse-kornbluth/
The New York Times
Libros 787
Archive.org
ACLU
La Goyco, San Juan, PR
ACLU of Puerto Rico
Jesse Ilan Kornbluth
jesseilanphoto@gmail.com
201-63-4555
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