At the 114th annual conference of the College Art Association in February, Associate Professor Paul Niell was awarded the the 2026 prize given for scholarship on Afro Latin American/Afro-Latinx studies for his essay “Following the Footsteps of Juana Agripina: Slavery, Memory, and the Architecture of Invisibility in Ponce, Puerto Rico,” in Architectures of Slavery: Ruins and Reconstructions, edited by Nathaniel Robert Walker and Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann.
The Association for Latin American Art (ALAA), an affiliate of the College Art Association (CAA), and the Visual Culture Section of the Latin American Studies Association (VCS-LASA), co-sponsor this annual award for one especially distinguished scholarly essay published on a topic related to Afro-Latinx Art and Afro-Latin American Art and Visual Culture. The recipients of the award since its establishment in 2022 have included Tatiana Flores, Matthew Rarey, Abigail Lapin-Dardashti, and Miguel Valerio, with several other scholars receiving honorable mention.
In the introduction to Architectures of Slavery, the editors describe Niell’s contribution:
“Niell uses archival and architectural documentation to reconstruct the tragic but courageous life of one enslaved woman in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Following her pathway through the hands of several enslavers and abusers and multiple houses, landscapes, and public spaces, the case of Juana Agripina is put forward as a remedy to the pervasive invisibility of African-descendant people and their experiences in the plazas, monuments, and museums of a historic Spanish Empire city with a rich built heritage and a profound debt to the enslaved.”
Colleagues describe the impact of Niell’s essay:
“Niell brings to light—and to life—Juana Agripina’s harrowing experiences. For months after reading this essay, I recalled her twenty-four-mile journey to Ponce, at the end of which she placed her fourteen-pound iron chain before the city council. Niell’s archival intervention exposes the twisted logics of slavery, in particular her abuser’s view that ‘if her constitution was sufficiently strong to traverse that distance under the weight of the chain, it called the severity of her abuse into question’ (101). The infuriating denials and contradictions that Niell excavates from the documentary record simultaneously affirm Juana Agripina’s astonishing resilience.”
— Erika Loic
“This article is destined to be a classic in the tradition of Byron Hamann’s article ‘The Mirrors of Las Meninas: Cochineal, Silver, and Clay’ that appeared in the Art Bulletin in 2010. Rather than unpacking the consumer desire that fueled a painting, Niell’s meticulous mining of the archives paints a picture of the disenfranchised Juana Agripina as she negotiates the built environment of 19th century Ponce, Puerto Rico. Working from the ground up, Paul considers the fate of this brave Puerto Rican from the view below her feet. Niell paints a rich portrait of a brave woman against the landscape of the archive, the legal system, and the local architecture.”
— Stephanie Leitch
Below, views from the CAA conference and images from Niell’s research for the article:
