Puerto Rico’s indeterminate status as a US territory has unquestionably left it vulnerable to political, economic, and environmental exploitation. Its status as neither country nor state has resulted in the small island of Vieques and its residents facing harm at the hands of the US Navy, who occupied Vieques from 1941-2003. Viequenses were and continue to be subject to territorial restrictions, chemical contamination, and the dangers of unexploded ordnance. Even after a locally grown, transnational social movement coalesced to drive the Navy out of the island in the early 2000s, the immediate transfer of Vieques’ land from the Navy to the US Fish and Wildlife Service marked what has become a perpetual stalemate between Viequenses and the US government. In the face of a seemingly impossible situation that a non-sovereign nation working with a global social movement could not resolve, a performance art series was developed to make these issues visible. This paper analyzes for the first time all four pieces of Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla’s performance art series in Vieques produced between 2001-2010 that addresses the naval occupation, the social movement, and the aftermath of the land transfer. Although the artists say that their work is not political in nature, I argue that there is a tension between the art and the artists with respect to what the pieces do and what the artists claim as their intent. Specifically, this tension demonstrates the in-between or liminal space that characterizes Puerto Rico as it is rejected both by the US despite being a part of it and by Latin America because it is technically part of the US. Combining historical literature with social movement and performance art theory, this paper illuminates how Allora and Calzadilla were able to introduce provocative new language to talk about the island of Vieques and raise questions about the possibilities of change for Puerto Rico.

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