Nottingham Contemporary is delighted to present the first major exhibition of artist Daniel LindRamos (b. 1953, Puerto Rico) in a European institution, showcasing five of the artists’ monumental sculptural assemblages, including a newly commissioned work.

Lind-Ramos lives and works in Loíza, a coastal town on the northeastern edge of Puerto Rico. The town is a hub of West African cultural traditions kept alive by the resident ‘afrodescendientes’, descendants of former enslaved people who founded Loíza in the 16th century. Lind-Ramos has spent much of his life there, immersed in the stories, history, traditions and culture passed down through generations.

The power of memory and storytelling is central to Lind-Ramos’ work. He creates evocative sculptural assemblages that reflect Puerto Rican historical and contemporary experiences, imbued with the storytelling traditions of his Afro-descendent history and inviting reflections on sustenance and the regenerative power of community. The totemic sculptures incorporate objects found washed up on beaches and mangroves local to his hometown of Loíza, or gifted from friends, family and community members. Items such as kayaks, plant material, burlap sacks, boots and mattress springs, all individually allude to fragmented stories, but when combined they conjure imagery of the artist's home, its communities, customs and land as well as its entanglement with colonial histories and global environmental disaster.

The five works, presented across two large scale galleries at Nottingham Contemporary, honour fast-disappearing local customs of agriculture, fishing and cooking, and reflect on the impacts of ongoing ecological disasters and global events such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

The history and traditions of storytelling from Loíza are represented in El Viejo Griot (2022-23), which invokes a character from Loíza’s annual Fiestas de Santiago Apóstol – el viejo (which translates as elder storyteller), to narrate critical events in Puerto Rican and Caribbean history representative of Black victories over European domination.

In Ambulancia (2020) (2022-23), created during the COVID-19 pandemic, a haunting creaturelike figure incorporates objects such as an emergency siren light, a Tannoy speaker, mattress springs, a wheelbarrow, a pair of leather boots and plastic tubing to explore collective experiences of trauma and loss.

Ecocritical themes have become increasingly present in more recent works. Centinelas de la luna nueva (2022-23) and Centinelas de la luna negra (2022-23), both part of Lind-Ramos’ series of mangrove works, will be presented alongside new commission The Green Guardian (2024). All three works explore the relationship between the mangroves and local ecology of Puerto Rico with the wider global ecosystem, the circulation of waste, issues of environmental change and extreme weather. These majestic figurative works are presented as post-human eco-ancestral guardians of the mangroves and consider the mangrove’s cultural, spiritual and ecological importance as protector against erosion and climate change.

Lind-Ramos’ use of existing objects and found materials testifies to the fragile ecosystems and cycles through which we are all interconnected. By bringing these objects together in new forms he highlights the importance of celebrating local cultures whilst also understanding the global need for the support and protection of our ecosystems, so they in turn can protect us.