Started in 2012, Poncili Creación uses puppetry, sculpture, experimental sound, and performance-creation to bring fictional, almost absurdist worlds into reality. Spearheaded by twins Efraín and Pablo Del Hierro, the Puerto Rican collective embraces a decentralized approach by inviting various artists, musicians, and performers to form part of their events and public interventions. This commitment to inclusion is a testament to their community-centered and collaborative ethos.

Characterized by an experimental and raw performance-style, the group’s presentations combine object-making and improvisational techniques that make each activation a one-of-a-kind experience. With their punk, DIY orientation and distinct visual language, they move seamlessly between formal settings like experimental galleries and artistic institutions, as well as grassroots environments such as community centers, underground music venues, or the streets.

The presentation of Poncili Creación’s work in Montreal takes the form of a two-part event on April 25th and 27th, 2024. The program begins on Thursday, April 25th, with a conversation between the collective and Concordia University professor Mark Sussman, centering the artists’ experimentation with sound, movement and giant puppetry as forms of resistance and community collaboration. On Saturday the 27th, the twins present their latest work Brain of Grandma Skin of Stone accompanied by live, local musicians.

– Bettina Pérez Martínez

This two-part program is co-organized by the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery and the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture (CISSC) at Concordia University.

Read the essay by Luis Rivera Jimenez

Poncili Creación (unknown) is a soft sculpture and performative collective that ambiguously started around the 2010s in the soon-not-to-be colony of Puerto Rico. They have dedicated all their life to bending the ancient art of puppetry into a community-building tool in pursuit of a different world. Mixing trash with colour, dance with existentialism, and life with death, their practice stays at the fringes of anarchist lunacy and contemporary intellectualism. Currently on a neverending world tour, they present their work in schools, festivals, backyards, galleries, houses, museums, bathrooms, and weddings. If you see them feed them, they are always hungry.