ARTS at King Street Station gallery, photo by Marcus Donner. Join us at ARTS at King Street Station on November 6 for Pioneer Square’s First Thursday Artwalk! Celebrate the opening of Jo Cosme’s Welcome to Paradise: ¡Viva Puerto Rico Libre!, featuring a feature a live Bomba performance by Otoqui Reyes at 7 p.m. EL SUEÑO will also be hosting Woven Stories from 5-7 p.m., the first of a three-part workshop series. Read more about the evening’s events below!
ARTS at King Street Station is open Wed. – Sat. 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. and until 8 p.m. on First Thursdays. The gallery is located at 303 S. Jackson St., Top Floor, Seattle, WA 98104.
Woven Stories – Hair & Ribbon Braiding
From 5-7 p.m., explore braiding as a living expression of identity. Participants are invited to honor lineage and explore their own connections through the beauty and symbolism of hair.
Woven Stories explores the deep connections between craft and identity. Through weaving, braiding, and other hands-on techniques, participants will reflect on how these practices carry personal meaning and ancestral memory. Each session invites storytelling through making, unraveling the threads that tie us to our cultural heritage, community, and sense of self. No prior experience needed.
Welcome to Paradise: ¡Viva Puerto Rico Libre!
Jo Cosme’s Welcome to Paradise: ¡Viva Puerto Rico Libre! confronts the glossy image of Puerto Rico as a tropical haven, exposing centuries of colonization, U.S. rule, and disaster capitalism. The exhibition layers spectacle with critique: lenticular prints, neon signs, and a claw machine lure the eye, while hurricane relief tarps stitched into flags, a vending machine dispensing buried histories, and protest slogans revealed only under black light pull viewers into deeper truths. A slowed revolutionary anthem fills the space, its distortion casting a haunting weight.
The opening reception will feature a live Bomba performance by Otoqui Reyes at 7 p.m. and artist Shey ‘Rí Acu’ Rivera Ríoswill be activating their own installation, as well as one of Jo Cosme’s, throughout the night.
