Un Desvío Pa’ Porta de Sol: Militarism & Urban Art in Puerto Rico, Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies (Forthcoming; Accepted Spring 2026).

Prompted by the author’s own detour to the northwest region of Puerto Rico, this essay reflects on the process of desviación (detour) unfurling at the Dreamland Urban Art Gallery in Aguadilla. To theorize a novel approach to desviación, the author navigates new pathways through Martiniquais philosopher-poet Edouard Glissant’s theory of detour and Puerto Rican philosopher Pedro Lebron Ortiz’s concept of filosofía del cimarronaje (philosophy of marronage). The essay unfurls a theory of desviación as irreducible to spectacular moments of opposition such as the reversal of capitalist spectacles (e.g., Guy Debord’s detournement, or space hijacking). The author instead thinks the act of desvíar (to detour) through the “mid-level scenes” of artistic creation that emerge when approaching Dreamland as a “space for encounter” (Bruce, 2020). Ultimately, the essay traces an emerging conciencia de desvío (detour consciousness) at Dreamland through two elements: diasporic encounter and detour temporality. While not directly confrontational toward U.S. colonialism, the desviación manifesting at this living urban art gallery nonetheless demonstrates how the practice of detour chips away at the colonial imposition. Throughout, the author performs the practice of desvíar as a mode of Caribbean philosophy to demonstrate its potential for both unsettling U.S. colonialism and enabling new ways of thinking-being-doing-together.