For cover artist Shey Rivera Ríos, it’s all about community. “I create in all kinds of art forms; I really love performance and visual art,” they say, adding, “All of it is connected to community and organizing.” The artwork for the Motif cover was taken from a poster Rivera Ríos designed for the fundraiser Foo Fest 2025, which on August 9 will celebrate the 40th anniversary of AS220, a nonprofit community arts organization located in downtown PVD. AS220, which named Rivera Ríos its Artist-in-Residence for Foo Fest, is the guest editor of this issue.
The organization began as an artists’ space, hence the AS, at 220 Weybosset Street, above the Providence Performing Arts Center. Its main offices are now located at 95 Mathewson Street in downtown PVD. And the Foo? “It’s a silly name,” Rivera Ríos chuckles, explaining it’s short for fool or someone who’s “a trickster, or mischievous.” The fundraising event’s original name was Fool’s Ball, a gala and carnival which eventually evolved into the music and arts festival it is today. “The festival paused for a few years before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. It’s now making a comeback,” Rivera Ríos says in an interview at Knead Doughnuts on Smith Street in PVD. Feral Fruit is the title of their composition for this special issue. The fruit gives a sense of newness, and of revolution.
The spiderweb represents connection. “And a machete, a symbol of my Puerto Rican culture, cuts through the noise so we can get to the root of our community,” they relate, adding, “It’s about joy, celebration, and resistance.” Rivera Ríos joined AS220 in 2010 after moving to PVD from Borikén, Puerto Rico, where they’d been born and raised. They served as Administrative Assistant, Director of Programs, Associate Managing Director, and as Co-Director and Artistic Director. They were key in pushing for racial justice and equity work as a core of AS220.
The nonprofit was founded by Umberto “Bert” Crenca, Susan Clausen, and Scott Seabolt as a reaction to the stifling cultural climate and censorship of the Reagan years. Rivera Ríos is no stranger to that fight, even four decades later. In May 2024, they and two other artists, Feda Eid and Luana Morales, were scheduled to put on the exhibition Nothing Living Lives Alone at Providence College Galleries.
But two weeks before it opened, the college administration canceled the event, citing a work Rivera Ríos had done in 2017 and saying it “showed contempt for the Catholic faith.” That artwork was not part of the Galleries exhibition. “We were surprised by the cancellation. And we had to scramble to do fundraising so we could open our exhibition. The community really came through for us,” Rivera Ríos recalls. The trio opened their exhibition, renamed Everything Living Fights Back, at Aunty’s House, a PVD community arts center founded by Lilly Manycolors, an interdisciplinary artist like Rivera Ríos.
“It showed that the community shows up for you when you’re in need,” Rivera Ríos comments, adding that Aunty’s House was an amazing space for the three artists to show their artwork. “AS220 has always been against censorship in the arts. They wrote a letter of support and stood by me as an artist. That’s important. That’s powerful,” they say. The cultural worker has other good memories of AS220. “I really loved every Foo Fest. It was a lot of work. And a lot of artists came out to make it happen,” they say. “My feet would hurt for three days!” Rivera Ríos founded Studio Loba in PVD, a storytelling lab that produces artistic and cultural projects that imagine solutions to create thriving communities. “I like joy and beauty and gathering, confronting injustice, and creating a better vision of the future,” they say.
Rivera Ríos is active in the mediums of performance, installation, digital media, poetry, and narrative. Their work spans several genres and topics such as home, capitalism, queerness, and magic. One of their favorite performance pieces is titled Criatura del Trópico Amargo where Rivera asks the audience to help them repair their wings by taping feathers on their arms. In turn, the participants are offered fruit to eat together. “The piece is about letting the self be supported by others, and giving back to the community by the offering of fruit. Reciprocity is how we can build together,” they conclude.
Their many works can be viewed at their website sheyrivera.com