Pal’ campo - Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Brooklyn Botanic Garden Brooklyn Botanic Garden
For the Birds

Pal’ campo

Kevin Quiles Bonilla
Plywood, wallpaper
24 in. × 24 in. × 10 in.
Rock Garden

A birdhouse with a stone mosaic exterior outdoors next to a spiky yucca plant.
Pal’ campo birdhouse at Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
A terrazzo pattern of small stones
Concept image courtesy of Kevin Quiles Bonilla.

Spanish for “to the field,” Pal’ campo  is a re-creation of Kevin Quiles Bonilla’s grandmother’s home in the countryside of Puerto Rico. Recreating a mosaic of small rocks and pebbles, the wallpaper covering the birdhouse mimics the pattern of the floor tiles within his childhood home. “I was interested in the idea of birds and humans as migratory beings,” Quiles Bonilla says, “the memories we keep during our travels and the notion of what home is to those who move from one place to another.”

  • A man with black-rimmed glasses and a black tee sits in a studio with prints on the wall behind him

    Kevin Quiles Bonilla (b. 1992, Puerto Rico) is an interdisciplinary artist born in San Juan. He’s the recipient of an Emerging Artist Award from the Kennedy Center (2017). He has presented his work at the Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum, Lincoln Center, and the Leslie-Lohman Museum’s Project Space. He explores ideas around power, colonialism, and history with his identity as context. He currently lives and works between Puerto Rico and New York.

    Artist website: kevinquilesbonilla.com
    Instagram: @kevinquilesbonilla

Photo: Rebecca Ou

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Balmorhea

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