In 1955, Eastern Airlines delivered two tons of snow to the Caribbean Island of Puerto Rico. All that remains of this unusual event is just forty seconds of film, now housed in the archives of the Smithsonian Institution. Sofía Gallisá Muriente has reworked this footage, doubling and stretching it. The effect elongates people’s movements, reactions, and expressions, suspending fleeting moments of celebration and delight.
The installation includes a newsprint collage of media coverage and is set to Mon Rivera’s song Lluvia con nieve, which underscores the absurdity of snow arriving in the tropics and foreshadows its inevitable disappearance. The soundtrack progressively slows, each note of the song spaced farther and farther apart, as if disintegrating. Sound and film, slowed down to an almost impossible speed, exposes their structural mechanisms: individual film frames and notes become perceptible and at a point, distorted, emphasizing the fragility of the media (and the event) itself.
The spectacle of imported snow is situated within a broader historical context. At the time, record numbers of Puerto Ricans were leaving the island, as colonial economic policies eroded the possibility of sustaining livelihoods at home and forced migration in search of work. Through its layering of film, sound, and print, the piece tells a story of circulation and displacement—one shaped by colonial power and its unequal distribution of resources.
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About Contemporary Film, Video, and Sound Series
Sofía Gallisá Muriente : Lluvia con nieve (Rain with snow) is part of the Contemporary Film, Video, and Sound Series, which is dedicated to a rotating selection of works focusing on alternative archives. The series is curated by Katja Rivera, Curator of Contemporary Art and support is generously provided by The Margaret L. Lane Fund and NEH Distinguished Teaching Professorship in the Humanities at Colorado College.
Top image: Still from Luvia con nieve (2014) by Sofía Gallisá Muriente. Courtesy the artist.
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