"Battle for Paradise: Puerto Rico, restrictions apply*" Exhibit

"Battle for Paradise: Puerto Rico, restrictions apply*" is a photo essay by Jo Cosme that examines the tension between Puerto Rico as a marketed paradise and Puerto Rico as a lived reality.

Part of the ongoing project "Welcome to Paradise: ¡Viva Puerto Rico Libre!", the work focuses on how tourism, settler colonialism, and disaster-driven policies reshape who can remain on the archipelago and under what conditions.

Through photography and video, Cosme highlights the contrast between images designed to attract and the realities often kept out of frame - restricted access to land and beaches to the native population, rising costs of living, and the displacement of local communities. The phrase “restrictions apply” points to the fine print behind the promise of paradise, where access is uneven and shaped by power.

Rather than presenting Puerto Rico as a distant place, the work asks viewers to consider their proximity to these systems and what it means to move through them, whether as tourists, settlers, investors, or witnesses.

Thanks to our sponsor  The Seattle Public Library Foundation.

Free and reduced access supported by  4Culture.

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