The Alliance

Virtual Conference | April 28 2026

The Alliance (La Alianza) was filmed in Mameyes Arriba, Jayuya, alongside a group of friends who help care for the Tabonuco farm. It documents the search for a batey on their land, where Jesse Walter Fewkes excavated ceramic pieces that are now housed at the Smithsonian (Session 2). Building on this video, we discuss strategies for recovering ancestral knowledge, practices rooted in the land and in local materials, and how to think about archaeology from the present and from Puerto Rico as a way of grounding ourselves.

Lara Sánchez Morales

An archaeologist interested in the study of anthropogenic landscapes and what they can reveal about adaptive responses to climatic, environmental, and sociopolitical change over time. Her work also explores how environmental archaeology can be better integrated into community projects that seek to confront the challenges of the modern socio-environmental crisis. She is currently a professor in the Department of Anthropology at New York University (NYU), where she also directs the Ecological History and Human Landscapes Laboratory.

Mario Gracia

Craftsperson by trade, an educator by conviction, a reader by formation, a father, and a self-taught learner in the internet era. He is co-custodian of the farm where the educational and cultural project Tabonuco is located, in the mountains of Jayuya, Puerto Rico.

Rosaura Rodríguez

Artist and educator from Puerto Rico interested in nature and society through a multisensory approach. She creates illustrations, graphic narratives, pigments, and objects in which handmade craft traditions converge with contemporary experimentation.

Jomary Ortega

Multidisciplinary artist from Bayamón, Puerto Rico. Se earned a B.A. in Fine Arts from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, in 2003, and a master’s degree from the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain, in 2010. Se also pursued graduate studies in the History of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean at the Center for Advanced Studies of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. An artist, researcher, and educator, Se has spent around eight years engaged in artistic exploration and in gathering ancestral knowledge about the different fibers and vines used for basketry in Borikén and the Caribbean.

Resources shared during the panel: