Las Nietas de Nonó is comprised of sisters Mulowayi and Mapenzi Nonó, who live in Barrio San Antón, a half-rural, half-industrial working-class neighborhood of Carolina, Puerto Rico. They work at the intersection of theater, performance, dance, visual art, activism, ecology, and emancipatory education. Las Nietas de Nonó make autobiographical work that is framed within the socio-economic and geographical context of the exclusion and eviction of black communities in Puerto Rico, which entails racial and class discrimination, mass incarceration, drug trafficking, obstetric violence, and the cycle of poverty.

Part of their work is highlighting practices found in their neighborhood such as the expansion of ancestral knowledge, the exchange of produce grown in the neighborhood, and the re-use of found materials for artistic projects. Thus, Las Nietas de Nonó created Patio Taller, a community space, theater, and garden, established in their paternal grandparents’ former house, for public gatherings, performance, international artist residencies, workshops, sustainable agriculture, and cooking.

Las Nietas de Nonó received the 2017 Art of Change Fellowship from Ford Foundation and the Global Arts Fund from the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice. Their work has been presented in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, the United States, and England.