Artist Edra Soto works at the intersection of architectural interventions, literary components, collaboration and adjacency. During her early upbringing in Puerto Rico, Soto’s parents’ entrepreneurial pursuits and hobbies that took place at her family home - from commercial ceramics and stained glass crafts to baking - made an impact in her artistic practice. She correlates their pursuits in her approach to material and intention. “Material and intention become complementary. While anything has the potential of becoming “material,” an indispensable building block to each artwork, it would not be enough without the intention that it intends to embody.”
For the ENGAGE Projects booth presentation at EXPO, Soto’s installation gathers past and present projects that become a single narrative. From box fans that carry embedded codes of residential architecture to meticulously upholstered plastic chairs and picture frames that hide memorabilia of unknown lives and places, every single object is rooted in the home, aspiring to be more than their assigned function.