The New Britain Museum of American Art (NBMAA) presents “The Museum of the Old Colony: An Art Installation by Pablo Delano,” from Saturday, March 14, 2026, until Sunday, July 5, 2026. Free and open to all, the opening reception will take place at the NBMAA on March 12, from 5:30 to 7:00pm. The museum is located at 56 Lexington Street, New Britain, Connecticut.
A richly illustrated scholarly catalog featuring essays by Dr. Amanda Guzmán (Trinity College), Dr. Elena Rosario (Fairfield University), and Dr. Laura Bravo (University of Puerto Rico) will be available. As we posted previously, note that the latter will deliver the Distinguished Lecture “Exchanging Glances: Photography as a Decolonial Weapon” on Friday, March 13, 2026, at 5:30pm. [Also see our previous posts Exchanging Glances and The Museum of the Old Colony-NBMAA.]
Description: The Museum of the Old Colony: An Art Installation by Pablo Delano is a conceptual, site-specific, and continually evolving project that confronts the complex legacies of U.S. colonial rule in Puerto Rico since the occupation of 1898.
Unlike conventional exhibitions, the installation functions as a single immersive work of art. Referencing the conventions of traditional historical or anthropological museums, Delano’s fictional institution incorporates and re-contextualizes a dense assemblage of appropriated archival photographs, books, artworks, objects and moving pictures such as newsreels and documentaries. Infused with sardonic humor and incisive critique, the installation exposes the mechanisms by which museums—and by extension, empires—construct authority, shaping how history is seen, remembered, and believed.
First colonized by Spain in 1493, Puerto Rico became a U.S. territory in 1898. While Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, the unincorporated U.S. territory is widely considered to be the world’s oldest colony. Thus, the title of The Museum of the Old Colony has an ironically playful double meaning, referring both to Puerto Rico’s political status and to a popular soft drink brand made and sold in Puerto Rico since the 1940s called Old Colony. The project is also deeply personal for Delano; a means to grapple and reckon with his lived experiences and the complex history of the land where he was born and raised.
At the New Britain Museum of American Art, Delano’s installation transforms the Robert & Dorothy Vance Gallery and the Stitzer Family Gallery, incorporating new material specific to the Puerto Rican diaspora in Connecticut and evoking regional histories such as the 1983 Wells Fargo robbery by Puerto Rican Nationalists in West Hartford and the growth of Puerto Rican communities across New England, including the city of New Britain.
Presented nationally and internationally—most recently as part of the 60th International Art Exhibition of the 2024 Venice Biennale—The Museum of the Old Colony at the New Britain Museum of American Art is the largest version to date and the first to specifically include Connecticut-based references. The Museum of the Old Colony was cited as one of the “Defining Artworks of 2024” by the editors of ARTnews Magazine. [. . .]
For more information, see https://nbmaa.org/exhibitions/the-museum-of-the-old-colony
Also see previous posts https://repeatingislands.com/2025/12/23/forthcoming-exhibition-pablo-delanos-the-museum-of-the-old-colony-nbmaa/ and https://repeatingislands.com/2026/03/06/lecture-exchanging-glances-photography-as-a-decolonial-weapon/
[Image above, courtesy of Pablo Delano.]