Art for re-existence: Casa Pueblo's decolonial landscape interventions toward an energy insurrection

Hegemonic climate discourses advocate for sustainable transitions to reduce vulnerabilities and build resilience. However, these global discourses are often influenced by colonial narratives that persistently contribute to and reproduce extractive relations of power in places most impacted by climate change. Drawing on findings from one year of ethnographic research, this visual intervention focuses on a decolonial praxis in Puerto Rico, a colonial territory that has faced a series of major disasters in recent years. It engages with the artistic landscape interventions of Casa Pueblo, a community autogestión organization in the archipelago that has spearheaded an energy insurrection by promoting community-based solar energy projects as an alternative to climate adaptation and energy access. Using a decolonial lens, this article features nine artworks in the town of Adjuntas to affirm that artistic landscape interventions are critical building blocks in community autogestión -led transformation. They function as powerful expressions of beliefs, worldviews, and values, challenging colonial narratives, embodying aspirations for alternative futures, and creating new possibilities for social and environmental change. This insight enriches the discussion regarding energy transitions by presenting one dimension of autogestión -driven transformation efforts actively unfolding in a colonial territory lacking representation within global climate and energy debates, but working nonetheless to re-exist in a context of constant injustice and vulnerability.