Jo Cosme is a Native Boricua and award-winning multimedia artist who was displaced from Borikén/Puerto Rico, to Seattle one year after Hurricane María. Her shock over North Americans’ ignorance of the archipelago inspired her to create works that provoke reflections on U.S. imperialism, disaster capitalism, and neocolonialism in her homeland. Cosme holds a BFA in photography from Puerto Rico’s School of Fine Arts. Her work has been exhibited at the Museo de las Américas (PR), the Whatcom Museum, Out of Sight, Photographic Center Northwest, Dab Art Gallery (Los Angeles), and Galerie Rivoli 59 (Paris), among other venues. In 2021, she was granted the Puerto Rican Artist Fellowship at MASS MoCA’s A4A Residency, followed by Northwest Film Forum’s Collective Power Fund grant and Artist Trust’s GAP grant in 2022. Recently, Cosme was awarded Pratt Fine Arts Center’s Bernie Funk Artist Scholarship, the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture’s City Artist grant, McMillen Foundation’s 2023 Fellowship, and was named one of 4Culture’s 2023 Arc Fellows. In 2024, the SEATAC Airport recently added one of her pieces to its permanent public collection. She also received the Anderson Ranch Fine Arts Center Resident Artist Scholarship and will exhibit her new expanded version of her work paired with a curation of local artists directly from Borikén, Puerto Rico, opening November 6th, 2025, in ARTS at King Street Station.