"States of Matter" by Raúl Romero

Transformer’s Siren Arts program is honored to announce States of Matter, a sound & sculptural installation by Philadelphia based artist Raúl Romero. This conceptual, site-specific exhibition by Raúl Romero is also the inspiration for Siren Arts’ 10th Annual Summer Artist Residency Program & Public Performance Art Series, featuring Wednesday evening artist talks at Siren Arts, with Thursday evening performance art events on Asbury Park’s 2nd Avenue Beach July 15 – August 20, 2026.

Rooted in artist Raúl Romero’s identity as a Puerto Rican living on the mainland USA, his comprehensive and evolving States of Matter exhibition at Siren Arts explores how culture and language traverse the very water that both separates and connects the island to the mainland. From the historical, resistant rhythms of Bomba to the global sonic dominance of Bad Bunny, culture undergoes its own states of matter: evaporating from one shore to condense, transform, and reshape the landscape of another.

Utilizing audio recordings captured from the Atlantic Ocean along the coastlines of Asbury Park and Ocean Grove, in addition to studio recordings of ice melting, Romero constructs a series of ‘sound pictures’. These auditory landscapes serve to illuminate what is happening beneath the surface, giving voice and light to the historically unseen and unheard narratives of migration. The ocean is recontextualized not merely as a geographic barrier, but as a vast archive of movement, memory, and continuous transition.