Born in 1990, Joiri Minaya is an artist of Dominican and US American heritage who studied at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Visuales in Santo Domingo, the Altos de Chavón School of Design, and Parsons the New School for Design in New York. Her work critically examines and disrupts traditional and modern perceptions of a fantasized tropical identity through a multidisciplinary approach. Minaya’s explores and reclaims identity, aimed at deconstructing and releasing the histories, cultures, and notions imposed upon her. This journey is not just about unlearning but about reconciling her lived experiences across different cultures, from her upbringing in the Dominican Republic to her life in the US and the broader Global North. She creatively navigates the dissonances and misunderstandings, leveraging them as a source of creativity. Her work confronts and manipulates the external gaze that objectifies her, fulfilling its expectations only to subvert them, thereby reclaiming her power and autonomy. Through her interdisciplinary practice, Minaya delves into the constructed nature of tropical identity.

The Upkeepers integrates a historical photograph taken in St. Croix in 1899, showing sugar cane workers, with the smiling, re-lipstcked silhouette of a woman from a postcard from Martinique dated a century later. The work reflects on the enduring legacy of labor and exploitation in the Caribbean.