Puppies Puppies

Please do not abbreviate or shorten this title • it is just as important as the work itself • This work is evidence • a mark • that I fought • through my expression • through my voice • through my protests • for people to acknowledge • that I am a woman • my chromosomes • my genitalia • the sex I was assigned at birth do not determine my gender • they do not make me any less of a woman • OUR EXISTENCE AS TRANS WOMEN • TRANS PEOPLE • IS NOT UP FOR DEBATE • WE SHOULD NOT BE TREATED AS LESS THAN • WE DESERVE RESPECT AND UNDERSTANDING • WE DESERVE TO HAVE HEALTHCARE • WE DESERVE TO HAVE HOUSING • WE DESERVE TO WALK OUT THE DOOR WITHOUT THE FEAR OF HARM OR DEATH • WE DESERVE TO BE OURSELVES • WE DESERVE TO LAVISH IN WHO WE ARE • and we deserve equity not just equality • I learned from my Trancestors • to not shrink in the face of violence • erasure • discrimination • for so many trans people • our starting line is not the same as our cis counterparts • this should be acknowledged and accounted for • there’s a reason we aren’t in many slightly older art history books • there’s a reason I never felt mirrored when studying art • we were never let into any of these spaces (not that long ago) • with Sylvia Rivera as my guiding light • I will demand what I deserve • I will be vocal • I won’t be stepped on • I am a Puerto Rican Japanese Indigenous Trans Woman • I am made in the image of a higher spirit/entity • my body was shaped • molded • and my existence is art • (as are the other trans people on this planet) • it’s quite frankly a miracle that I’m here today • a brain tumor survivor • a rape survivor • a survivor of all that went against me • and every obstacle • my presence • is in this sculpture • performing in my absence • I am a woman • and no one can ever take that from me (this is my body being handed over to many people • to be used • to be sold • to be exhibited • to be exchanged • and this is not lost on me • it’s a part of the work) • Hahom, 2026
Photo: Django van Ardenne

Puppies Puppies (Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo) returns to the public sphere with a new bronze: a life-size classical sculpture cast from a 3D scan of her body after top surgery. Where her 2023 work placed her nude body atop a plinth emblazoned with the word “WOMAN”—the first public sculpture of a nude trans woman—this commission marks a continuation: the same body, transformed, cast again into permanence. The work insists on what the first established, that the trans body is sacred, political, and worthy of monumentalization, while also proposing the body as a site of ongoing becoming.