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Twin brothers Pablo and Efrain Del Hierro are the duo behind Poncili Creación, whose otherworldly puppets travel internationally to party with your inner child
A Miami Art Week audience watched wide-eyed in December as a pair of towering, handmade puppets wobbled and lurched through Locust Projects as improvised music engulfed the space.
Situated in Little Haiti, Locust Projects is a hub for locals wanting to experience art without the pressure of access or interpretation. On this night, Puerto Rican twin brothers Pablo and Efrain Del Hierro, better known as Poncili Creación, animated the larger-than-life yellow puppets with long limbs that stretched out and bent at odd angles. Their extremities were bulbous and cartoonish, made from soft fibers and arranged in a playful and surreal way. Not formally human, but relative enough that they appeared uncanny. Their movements collapsed and expanded in tandem and tension with improvised percussion and synths, played by local musicians.
Pablo and Efrain first performed during Miami Art Week in 2014. With Art Week usually being known as a blur of white walls and assumed art-world language, Poncili Creación’s performance appeared in stark contrast to the highbrow affairs. During the performance at Locust Projects, the audience gleefully cheered as Pablo pulled a prop out of his behind, and Efrain stole shoes off attendees’ feet and enacted absurd scenes with them. The room loosened. People laughed. No one quite knew what would happen next, but they cheered for more.
While they have largely been accepted into the ecosystem of highbrow art, Poncili Creación’s work is radical and, in many ways, overtly political. It is a rejection of the coded ways of seeing that often define what art is, who can make it, and what it is for.
Chaotic tranquility
Pablo and Efrain grew up in Santurce, Puerto Rico, constantly creating. They made music, drawings, dances, and graffiti. Their art and worldviews are deeply shaped by Puerto Rico. And because there is a limited awareness of how Puerto Rico appears in the media versus what it feels like on the ground, the brothers often discuss the island’s political reality, the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, and the ongoing conditions that rarely lead to sustained global attention.
Puerto Rico’s chaotic realities shape their art. In 2012, the brothers organized what they called “Crazy Wednesdays” at an experimental venue in Santurce called El Local. The brothers described it as an open invitation “delirious cabaret.” Anyone could come and do anything: poetry, movement, a burst of sound. While Poncili Creación didn’t start as a defined project, the art happenings in Santurce led them to puppetry as the form of art that proved to be the most interesting and fitting container for them to express themselves.
The puppets needed music. The puppets needed movement. The puppets needed a story—not narrative in the traditional sense, but something that made them feel alive. This is much of the work the brothers have done in the years since.
The name also came later. “Poncili” is a word the brothers invented, playing with the word “tranquilo,” the Spanish word for tranquil. They wanted something that sounded soft, yet acknowledged that calm and chaos exist together. That’s what their new word came to mean: chaotic tranquility. “Creación” followed because, to them, everything is an act of making.
The origins of their name perfectly capture the wonder and mayhem of their live performances. At Locust Projects, Poncili Creación’s December performance was part of “Delight in the Mire,” a party celebrating artist Tara Long’s corner store-inspired installation, “La Esquinita,” or “Little Corner,” a surreal sweets souvenirs shop filled with more than 500 mini sculptures. The space’s sugar-coated surrealism lent itself perfectly to the brothers’ pop-up performance—one of several that night.
Poncili Creación’s backdrop for the night was made by Long: a monumental, lopsided, three-tiered birthday cake that was incorporated into the performance, with the brothers sitting, roaming, and climbing on the structure first as themselves, in skin-tight bodysuits abstractly painted in red and pink hues. Soon, they presented small, whimsical puppets made of bright foams and fibers. The creatures were cartoonish and grotesque, appealing to nostalgia while also creating discomfort. Part puppetry performance, part improv, the puppets interacted with each other, the brothers, the cake, and the audience—more anchored in the joy of the unexpected than any linear story. A woman also roamed around the performance with a foam-crafted video camera, “filming” throughout. Not long after, the brothers exited the scene and returned inhabiting the looming puppet structures they’re now known for. Some puppets peed, some made noises, some resembled recognizable creatures, others didn’t. The result was a somehow cohesive show, built in micro-moments of sustained wonder.
Their latest project, “Sorpresimovil,” or Surprise Mobile, is described by the duo as “a roving entertainment center that is part giant puppet, part theatre stage.” The truck, which is also a puppet, is full of puppeteers who travel to different locations creating “a vibrant, surreal world for locals to engage with.” Each performance was free and open to all ages, similar to the nomadic theater companies of times past.
The name also came later. “Poncili” is a word the brothers invented, playing with the word “tranquilo,” the Spanish word for tranquil. They wanted something that sounded soft, yet acknowledged that calm and chaos exist together. That’s what their new word came to mean: chaotic tranquility. “Creación” followed because, to them, everything is an act of making.
The origins of their name perfectly capture the wonder and mayhem of their live performances. At Locust Projects, Poncili Creación’s December performance was part of “Delight in the Mire,” a party celebrating artist Tara Long’s corner store-inspired installation, “La Esquinita,” or “Little Corner,” a surreal sweets souvenirs shop filled with more than 500 mini sculptures. The space’s sugar-coated surrealism lent itself perfectly to the brothers’ pop-up performance—one of several that night.
Poncili Creación’s backdrop for the night was made by Long: a monumental, lopsided, three-tiered birthday cake that was incorporated into the performance, with the brothers sitting, roaming, and climbing on the structure first as themselves, in skin-tight bodysuits abstractly painted in red and pink hues. Soon, they presented small, whimsical puppets made of bright foams and fibers. The creatures were cartoonish and grotesque, appealing to nostalgia while also creating discomfort. Part puppetry performance, part improv, the puppets interacted with each other, the brothers, the cake, and the audience—more anchored in the joy of the unexpected than any linear story. A woman also roamed around the performance with a foam-crafted video camera, “filming” throughout. Not long after, the brothers exited the scene and returned inhabiting the looming puppet structures they’re now known for. Some puppets peed, some made noises, some resembled recognizable creatures, others didn’t. The result was a somehow cohesive show, built in micro-moments of sustained wonder.
Their latest project, “Sorpresimovil,” or Surprise Mobile, is described by the duo as “a roving entertainment center that is part giant puppet, part theatre stage.” The truck, which is also a puppet, is full of puppeteers who travel to different locations creating “a vibrant, surreal world for locals to engage with.” Each performance was free and open to all ages, similar to the nomadic theater companies of times past.
Pablo and Efrain are adamant that these puppetry performances—that interrupt routine and bring art into spaces not designed for it—are just that: a performance, not theater. Theater suggests a set of rules. A stage. A set. A script. Seats. Poncili Creación’s work resists these confines. They are anti-narrative, but their work is still imbued with meaning. They’re just not interested in linear stories. They work through image, sound, and movement: things that make people feel rather than understand.
Their art, in many ways, is an act of rebellion—especially in the affluent and exclusive art world. The brothers have been able to sustain their art practice without acquiring large amounts of capital, and they redistribute the funds they do make back into their art.
“There’s a lot of people that, because of politics and political views, end up not doing everything that they could achieve,” said Efrain in reference to artists who refuse to accept money and resources from certain entities. “Whereas I think real pirates will take the money, anything it takes, [to] do what you want to do and what you believe in.”
Pirate economics
Months after their December Miami Art Week show, Poncili Creación performed as part of Bogotá, Colombia’s Bogotrax, an independent alternative arts festival with autonomous events that spill out into the capital city from February to March. The festival’s loose, imprecise spirit aligned perfectly with the brothers’ work, in large part, because accessibility is central to their art.
Most of the brothers’ performances are free, including recent performances in Miami, where art fairs such as Art Basel Miami Beach, Art Miami, and CONTEXT Art Miami that house some of the most sought-after work from around the world can cost anywhere from $40 to $100 for a day pass. Prices climb significantly with various tiers that promise a more exclusive experience, including early access previews, private lounges, and invitation-only events. Pop-up, free, and public performances such as Poncili Creación’s move outside of this rarefied economy, even as they exist alongside it, offering a different entry point into art.
Miami’s Little Haiti community has long served as an important gathering place for the DIY community, Pablo told Prism, citing DIY shows that have taken place in thrift stores and parking lots.
The brothers emphasize the layers of contradiction often at work in the art world, highlighting the ways that underground artists and communities of color are the ones literally building and working in the very art spaces that exclude them and prove to be inaccessible to the general public. That said, they don’t concern themselves much with how their presence is interpreted in the radically different spaces they sometimes inhabit. That they perform at pricey and exclusive art events and in public spaces for free is not intended to be transgressive.
“What we do is more of a commitment between ourselves,” Efrain said, explaining that the duo simply prioritizes doing what they love.
But love doesn’t always pay the bills. That’s why the brothers don’t reject events such as Art Week. Instead, they move through it on their own terms, calling themselves “pirates.” What emerges, then, is a kind of pirate economics: Poncili Creación takes money from institutions when it is available, but not as an end goal. These funds are simply treated as another resource.
“We just are taking whatever comes,” Pablo said. They’ll take the treasure chest from the museum then use the funds to do the free community show. This approach complicates the idea that artists have to either fully participate in capitalist systems or fully reject them. They do neither. A similar approach is taken for the materials they use to create their puppets. Materials such as foam and fabric are often found on the street or repurposed from others’ discarded projects. “Of course, there’s a lot of things that you need to buy to create some projects,” Efrain clarified, “and you just go and you buy them with a Robin Hood mentality.”
So, who is the target audience for this puppetry work? According to the brothers, it’s “the inner child.” They want their work to be felt by all people, regardless of their education or broader understanding of art. Poncili Creación’s commitment to access sets them apart from other players in the art world—both economically and emotionally. In today’s wellness economy where “self-care” is commodified, it’s incredibly rare to freely provide a nurturing sense of wonder without concern for financial gain. In fact, it feels kind of revolutionary.
“We believe in a personal revolution,” Pablo said. “We believe in change, in chaos, and in growth and evolution. And we believe that this world is absolutely thwarted in the way that it operates, in contrast to a way that it could operate using the same resources, and we could actually have peace and equality. So this is the revolution that we are mostly interested in. A revolution of human mindset.”
The brothers have certainly created overtly political art, such as a solo street parade they performed in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 2021 to protest police brutality and the Puerto Rican government’s poor handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. The performance, called “Somxs Podemx,” was commissioned by New York City’s El Museo del Barrio. But overall, the brothers are most interested in creating a shared experience. Whether protest, performance, or pure absurdity, the goal is to make people feel something together.
In videos shared on social media after their Locust Projects performance, what stands out the most are the faces of the audience. As Poncili Creación’s dreamlike puppets moved through the space, onlookers’ mouths were either smiling or agape, in contrast to the pretentious head-nodding that often fills Art Week. It was as if, just for a brief moment, their inner child came out to play.
Editorial Team:
Tina Vasquez, Lead Editor
Lara Witt, Top Editor
Stephanie Harris, Copy Editor
Ayi is a Colombian American writer, theater-maker, and filmmaker based in Miami. Her work spans criticism, essays, fiction, drama, and journalism. She holds a BFA in Drama from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and an MFA in Creative Writing from the Writer’s Foundry at St. Joseph’s University in Brooklyn.
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