Portraiture is one of the oldest forms of artistic expression. It is the visual representation of individuality, which is why it has been linked since the first civilizations to the exaltation of life and memory. However, it has also been one of the artistic expressions that has most served classism and its project of differentiation, since the portrait is not only the visual capture of the physical features of the person being portrayed, but has included, in many cases, details of their social, economic, and political position, their environment, and their psyche.

In fact, as the centuries progressed, and with them the colonial enterprises, the portrait was established as a luxury of the ruling elites to leave memories of power for centuries to come. Stone and metal sculptures, coins, verses, and canvases have served as support. With the onset of the industrial revolution, the development of psychoanalysis, photography and cinema, the production of new materials and the advance of technologies and audiovisual media, the 19th century allowed the apogee of artistic exploration for this genre, allowing at the same time hyperrealistic, playful, dreamlike visuals, abstractions and conceptual-hybrid creations, which have evolved to the present, challenging and re-articulating the significance, use and power of the portrait.

In Puerto Rico, it has been no different. The portrait has been widely approached from different media and disciplines, and in a variety of media. The history of the country's art has visual representations of individuality produced from the pre-Hispanic period to the present that allow us to reflect not only on the social evolution of the country, but also on the identities that have inhabited, inhabit, and will inhabit it.

In Hebras y vejigantes, a transmedia and transdisciplinary project directed by artists Gloriann Sacha Antonetty Lebrón and Juan Pablo Vizcaino Cortijo, much of this converges. Selected in 2024 by the Outwin Bocheever Portrait Competition to participate in The Outwin 2025: American Portraiture of Today exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Museum (Washington D.C., U.S.A.), this project integrates photography, sound, collage, poetry, sculptural masks of vejigantes, African haircuts, hairstyles and textiles to make visible the diversity of Afro-Puerto Rican and Afro-Caribbean identity and expression today. It is in itself a dazzling sound and moving album of 12 portraits, and at the same time a collective portrait, with which the exuberance and colors of Afro pride are enunciated and made visible. Likewise, by focusing on 13 black people from different generations, their haircuts, hairstyles, and masks, this project challenges the dominant narratives about Puerto Ricanness, breaking stereotypes and showing the diversity, richness, and complexity of Afro identities in Puerto Rico, the Caribbea,n and the world. This is a powerful reminder of the hope and resilience of these identities and their communities in the face of historical and contemporary challenges, and to address pressing social and political issues such as inequality, discrimination, and injustice.