-Puerto Rico.

A beautiful island with more than its fair share of Mother Nature and man-made issues -- earthquakes and hurricanes, struggles with identity, for equal attention and support from the mainland, all of which must sometimes seem like an unwinnable race for recovery and progress.

But urban art has become a surprising catalyst for change here.

Stunning murals in some of the most hardscrabble barrios.

Murals that tell the history of the neighborhoods and the island that give people a voice, that inspire hope and pride in those that live here, that are simply beautiful.

Art by the people and for the people.

[ Woman vocalizing ] I'm Ian Grant, and I have spent the last three decades using my background in history and art history, exploring cultures all around the world.

[ Man singing in native dialect ] -In this series, I'll take you to places I've never been to before... ♪♪ ...experiencing local life through the lens of the world's artists, artisans, and keepers of culture.

This is "Culture Quest."

♪♪ -Gustavus Adolphus College equips students to lead purposeful lives and act on the great challenges of our time.

Gustavus -- make your life count.

-Over a billion people live with preventable blindness.

See International partners with volunteer doctors to provide sight-restoring surgeries in underserved communities around the world.

-This organization is united in one mission -- to restore sight to the blind.

-They purify the air I breathe and the water I drink... keep me and the planet cool... and give me a career I love.

Trees -- when we take care of them, they take care of us.

-We all see different in our own ways because different reflects who you are, who you want to be.

The Northern Territory -- different in every sense.

-We're in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the capital of a beautiful island.

Stunning beaches, great food, layers of culture, genuinely nice people, and plenty of action and adventure for the intrepid traveler.

We're making our way over to the Santurce part of town to meet with a guy named Javi Cintron.

Javi's murals are all about the architectural style of the places he's painting in.

And he always involves the neighbors in his projects, doing everything from telling him stories about the buildings in his murals to sometimes even helping him paint.

As a result, it gives a barrio a great sense of ownership and pride in Javi's work.

Javi.

-Hey.

¿Qué pasa, compadre?

-Hey.

[ Laughs ] How are you doing, man?

-Come on in.

Come on in.

-You doing all right?

-I'm doing great.

-Good to see you.

Yeah.

-Welcome to my house.

This is my grandma's house, in which my mother was born, I was born.

The whole family was born in it.

-First off, a little Santurce history.

This is the place.

-Yeah, because this is the place in the -- like, in the '60s and the '70s where all the salsa and the salsa players... -Yeah.

-...used to come over here to unwind because the neighborhood, it was dangerous enough... -Yeah.

-...that not everybody can come over, but because everybody was a musician, either a mechanic or a musician, so they used to come here and unwind.

-I love the phrase "it was dangerous enough."

-Yeah.

We are the underground of Santurce.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They love the street.

-And you don't have to walk very far to find your first mural.

So tell me this.

So this is actually a great perspective.

We get into this discussion of graffiti and mural and when it turns from one into the other.

-Yeah.

Is a guy who mark the wall, which is sometimes a gang or young people who does in the spur of the moment.

They do a mark of dominance.

-Yeah.

-They see that he comes.

-Yeah.

But this graffiti artist came over.

He thought of the wall.

He thought of the scale of the wall.

He thought of the layers and the colors.

-This is something that has clear intention.

-Exactly.

-Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Muralists are on a whole different level.

It's an actual business to them.

They get permits for the places they're working in, so it's all legal, which in turn gives them much more time to work with.

More time ultimately leads to greater creativity and quality.

Of course, it also helps to have talent.

-This is another mural of mine.

-Oh, that's you.

-That I did for Santurce es Ley.

The neighborhood is where the hard-core drugs and...

It's a very rough... -It's a hard place.

-It's a very rough, rough neighborhood.

But it was built probably in the '20s, so the houses are beautiful.

-Oh.

-But because I grew up here, I can go and do sketches.

-Yeah.

-And I can do photographs.

So my intention is to bring the neighborhood that nobody can see to this wall that everybody can visit.

-So people can see it.

Yeah.

And just like that, we step into the center of the mural world in Santurce.

Oh, my God.

-And this is the epicenter.

Many of the murals are done around these corners, and everybody's working the same week, and everybody's painting.

-Oh, they're all doing it the same week?

-In the same week.

-So when was this all done?

Oh, there's Zayas up there.

David's... -That's David Zayas, yes.

That's Danae from Canada.

That's Alejandro.

And that's Siete Ocho Siete Galleria de Subcultura.

It's the gallery of the guy who coordinates and curates the festival.

-Santurce es Ley is the annual mural festival that happens here and has been going on for the last number of years.

It started out with mainly local muralists, like Javi, but more and more, it's been drawing muralists from all around the world.

Like, the person that did this... -This is done in spray.

-Mm-hmm.

-So what you do is, like, you put the drawing in the scale of the wall, and because every building is different, every wall is different.

-Right.

-And the wall doesn't work with you.

You have to work with that wall.

Whatever it takes for you to do it as quickly as possible, "A," because people are expecting it, it's a festival, "B," there's a deadline, and "C," you never know when it rains.

So you better work.

-And that's so true.

It suddenly rains.

You're like that.

-You better work.

-Yeah.

This is so perfect for that idea of art being for the neighborhood.

-People come now to see it more like, "Oh, you know, I can hang out and have a coffee or have a beer, but I can see art."

And because you are -- And you can actually look at it.

-Yeah.

-Yeah, you can see it.

It's not like you're in a gallery and a museum.

People go like -- just go this way.

-Yeah, keep moving.

Keep moving.

-Keep on moving.

-Yeah.

-You're just standing, looking at a David Zayas.

-Yeah.

-For, like, an hour.

-I didn't realize this about the way I was gonna feel standing here.

The scale of it.

You feel like you're almost inside it.

You know what I mean?

-No, that scale is perfect because you see it enough.

You see details all the way to the top.

I'll show you more.

Come.

-Javi was commissioned by the city to paint a mural commemorating the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Maria.

-So it was fun to do this mural.

It was one of the first year of Maria.

So everybody was really excited because some people just got electricity.

So it was a time that, "Oh, wow.

You know, we're gonna get out of the mess that we have."

-Yeah.

-And part of the reconstruction, it was to hire a couple of muralists to have bridges like this one, tell people, "We are doing better."

-It puts right in front of everyone driving through here that this is a neighborhood and this neighborhood's been here a long time.

And this is a community.

And we have a soul.

We have a heart.

And here it is.

-Everybody tells me, "Oh, remind me of my grandma.

It reminds me of my aunt.

It reminds me of the house that I grew up."

-Yeah.

-And I love that.

-People think, myself included -- think of mural art, urban art, graffiti as being this modern, modern thing.

But this is all about history and all about getting back to roots, which is this great juxtaposition between the medium and the message.

-It's a pleasure being here with you.

-It's been great, man.

This is spectacular.

I absolutely love this.

-Wepa, wepa.

You know what "wepa, wepa" is?

-No, I have no idea.

-When Puerto Ricans get overexcited... -Yeah.

-...we go, "Wepa, wepa!"

-And I get excited a lot, so I'm gonna be able to use that one.

That's so great.

Let's keep going.

-Let's go that way.

-Let's keep going.

We're driving southwest down to Ponce/Yauco area to go see this amazing muraled village, but there's an added wrinkle to this because just last week there was, I think, a 5.6-level earthquake.

And then two days ago, another one was 5.8.

So this island just keeps on getting beaten up by Mother Nature.

This is Shakira Olivares.

She grew up in Yauco and lives in Texas.

She's helping us out today as a translator.

And, yes, we are walking by a giant mural by our buddy Javi Cintron.

So one of these guys up here must be Pito.

Actually, I recognize him from the web page.

Hey.

Hi.

-Hi.

How you doing?

-Ian.

Pito.

-Pito Hernández.

-All right, man.

It's nice to meet you.

Pito is a huge advocate for getting his hometown on the map.

He created an organization called Yaucromatic, similar to Santurce es Ley in that it has an annual mural festival.

His goal was that Yaucromatic festivals would draw tourists from around the island and around the world and bring them into his hometown.

The first edition of Yaucromatic was a huge success, but that was only a taste of what was yet to come with Yaucromatic2.

This is now one of the most famous streets in the whole of Puerto Rico and the heart of Yaucromatic2.

-[ Speaking Spanish ] -So one of the proposals he got was this color pattern.

-[ Speaking Spanish ] ♪♪ -So the artist brought the idea, but the real doers were the people.

-So the actual people that live here did this?

-Yeah, 'cause the artist only had 14 days.

So 19 houses, they needed to paint.

So that's when the community, you know, kick in and they, you know, help in the project.

-[ Speaking Spanish ] -Yeah.

Yeah.

-And it's because, you know, people just got together.

They unified through art.

So he got 42 proposals, 42 projects, and he chose 13.

-So while all the artists and the community were painting the houses, the artists were also doing the mural?

-[ Speaking Spanish ] -Yeah, here and in the other 13.

-And all over the place.

-[ Speaking Spanish ] -It was a less-visited community in Yauco.

-[ Speaking Spanish ] -It turned out to be the most visited one in Yauco.

-You can now find countless Facebook postings, Instagram photos, music videos, travel blogs, all about this little street in Yauco.

-[ Speaking Spanish ] -So now there is arts and crafts, there's food, there's economic growth.

-[ Speaking Spanish ] -Great.

No, I think it's great.

Yeah.

-Yeah, that's community empowerment.

So then we decided to go to a third edition of Yaucromatic.

This is the exact location from the next edition of Yaucromatic.

-This is site.

-So you can see where the other little street is, way over there, and you're gonna bring it kind of this way.

It's like turning on color.

-Yeah.

-And now we get to spend the rest of our time with Damaris Cruz and David Zayas, two muralists at the top of their game.

With a degree in photography, Damaris started out in photography and painting, eventually moving up to the large scale of murals.

Her work is distinguished in part because of her use of collage and focuses on history and memories, as well as everyday life and local characters.

But it all revolves around telling a story.

She now has murals throughout Puerto Rico and as far away as Colombia, Ecuador, and Israel.

So this is one of your many projects.

But you were telling me it's part of a barrio project that you were involved with?

-Yeah, this is my recent project that I did with the Contemporary Museum.

-Oh, like, the Contemporary Museum?

The big museum in town?

-Yeah, the one here in Santurce.

-That's a big museum.

-Yeah.

-That's impressive.

I think that's impressive.

-I did three murals around here.

-Mm-hmm.

-It was called "Oda a la Memoria."

It's translated "ode to memory"?

"Odes to memory"?

-"Ode to the memory."

-"Ode to memory."

-Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm guessing.

I don't speak Spanish.

But it sounds right.

-You guessed right.

-Yeah.

Yes!

Nailed it.

Yeah.

-So basically my work always is about memory and continuality.

-Mm-hmm.

-So what I did in this project was interviewing a little people from here and also, like, doing some research about the area because this is, like, behind the workshops of the train, where it used to be.

-Ah.

-So there's a lot of history involving music here.

There's a lot of artists that come from here.

When you're doing a mural, like, you open the Pandora box of the memory of them because they started, like, looking at me weird, especially when I started gluing the papers.

Then people are like, "What are you doing?"

But eventually, as soon as they start, like, seeing an image or whatever... -Mm-hmm.

-...I found it really cool that people open the box and start, like, telling you stories around everything.

I don't want to say it was easy because it wasn't.

-Yeah, this does not look easy.

I mean, it looks like a hell of a lot of work actually to do the collage.

-You need to have patience.

But at the same time, maybe when you enjoy what you do, time goes very fast.

-Time goes quickly.

Yeah.

David's background is in visual arts, and like Damaris, his murals are all over the world, including Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Paraguay, Israel, and the United States.

He's also created short courses on street art at universities both in Puerto Rico and the U.S. David's style is all about reflecting the human condition.

Each element of his work is some sort of allegory.

Nothing makes it into his murals by chance.

So there are arrows coming in.

She's got a star in her lantern.

What's it about?

-The road is not easy.

So, but the arrow, this is for the... -Like, obstacles.

I mean, it's talking about the path that we -- All his work, he's talking about in a poetic way of the paths in life.

So in this case, the arrows are more like obstacles in your life, like, in your path.

-The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune is... -Exactly.

-Yeah.

Okay.

-From the difficult stuff, the life.

-Yeah.

Yeah.

-The rooster.

-Yeah.

-Have I seen that in a couple others of yours?

-Yeah.

-So that's part of your imagery, as well?

-The rooster is the spirit of fighter.

-Oh, yeah.

Okay.

-Yeah.

I use a lot in my work for this signification.

The rooster is part of my language.

-Yeah.

That's a perfect way of saying it.

No, I like that.

Honestly.

It's great.

All right, let's go see another.

Let's go check out another one.

-Mine.

-Yeah.

-Yours.

-[ Laughs ] -And so the competition begins.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Yeah.

All right.

So we're off to see her second piece in the museum's barrio project.

-So what I tend to do is kind of, like, create a story obviously, like, in a poetic way, because... -Damaris takes specific life elements from the neighborhood and blends it with general history from the area.

She also likes to hide specific little elements that only those from the neighborhood would recognize.

-If you really know how to look... -Yeah.

-...you will notice, and you can make the connection.

-Well, and in a way, both of your work, your works, both of your styles, have those elements of hidden meanings.

You have to look at it and spend some time, right?

You can drive by and go, "Wow, that's really cool."

But you also have this opportunity to stand and look and -- You know, "Why are there musical notes?

And why is that there?

Or why is the key in there?"

I love that element in your art.

And just a few blocks away, we're in front of another one of David's pieces.

The mural business is not all happy painting time.

It's a lot of hard work and stress and sacrifice if you want to make it in this business.

-He sleeps... -I remember... -He sleeps over there in back.

-David would actually sleep up on that platform when rain would come through rather than take the 10 minutes it would take to lower the platform to the ground.

-You see the cable, electric cables?

-Yeah, I do.

-Very dangerous.

-Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

At times, they were working just a few inches away from those cables.

Yeah.

-It's very hard.

-Well, and you're dealing with all these random elements.

Suddenly it's raining, suddenly it's super-hot.

Suddenly, you know, people are yelling at you.

I don't know.

Who knows?

I mean, all these different things are coming at you as you're trying to create something.

-Yeah, people was like, "Oh, well, take one day off."

Like... And we're like, "We can't."

-Yeah, a day off is when it's raining.

Yeah.

You don't take the easy way out, man.

You ever think of, like, painting this wall?

A nice low wall.

It's nice on the ground.

It'd be really easy.

-I don't think when I first start.

In the middle of a project, it's, "Oh [bleep]" -Yeah.

"Why didn't I do one on the ground?"

-Yeah.

-Now we get to head out of the city and up into the mountains to have a look at a private commission Damaris is working on.

It's a beautiful location, but as is still the case throughout Puerto Rico, you can look out at this stunning view and see the long shadow that Hurricane Maria still casts.

That must have been just a crazy time.

-Yeah.

Imagine all this way here without power and without water in some places.

-Yeah, how did places like this in the middle of nowhere... -People with the trees in the middle of the road that...

There were, like, mountains and [Speaking Spanish] -And, I mean, we're on top of a mountain.

-People didn't have access to go out of their houses.

-Right.

-Yeah.

-So no one can really get supplies up to them.

-Neither they can go down.

-And they can't go down.

Wow.

-There's still people that don't have [Speaking Spanish] a real roof.

They still have the tents of the FEMA.

-Tarp and stuff.

-The blue ones.

-Yeah.

-That's not a real roof.

-Wow.

-So it's crazy.

-Yeah.

-Everything in the murals, I think that I do it with a specific side of view.

I mean, you can see it from everywhere, you know?

But at the same time, I do it, like, in a specific point of view.

They're like, "Oh, my God, that tree looks crazy."

But when you -- "Oh."

You start to move [Speaking Spanish] the trees start to -- Put it where you have to be.

-Well, it's total -- This is my art history nerd part coming out, but it's a total Michelangelo thing.

Right?

He built his sculptures with that exactly in mind.

-Because you're gonna see from... -You'll be looking up at them.

Yeah, exactly.

So it's a time-honored tradition.

That's -- you and Michelangelo.

-Oh, my God.

-That's what it is.

Yeah.

All right.

We're back in Santurce for one final mural with David.

We're trying to see if we can get this... good angle on a mural that's up high.

So we're checking out this building to see how safe it is, but it sounds like a lot of the floors are missing, which is kind of a critical element when you're walking around.

These empty buildings always give me this feel of -- I don't know -- this at one point living past, right?

Someone was here, day-to-day life in this room.

Maybe they had kids, maybe they had a business.

That sort of ghost of lives past.

So we finally managed to find a way up to get some height to take a look at this awesome piece of David's.

-The message is very special.

It's a girl falling.

-Okay.

-The action is the stumbling.

-Okay.

-So the stumbling is very important for us, but is...

I learn much in the stumbling, so... -That's great.

-All my work have fantasy.

The skull in this case, it's a mask, right?

So... -Yeah.

Uh-huh.

-So different... -Different reasons to present yourself differently.

-Exactly.

The birdhouse is representing... What it say?

The home.

-Right.

-The home is very important, but it's here or...

It's like... Como... [ Speaking Spanish ] -It represents the home that we put our spirits, our soul.

-I get that.

No, I get that.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a metaphor for... No, actually I totally get what you're saying.

Yeah.

-Yeah.

-So there's a space where you kind of keep all your... -Exactly.

What -- And I get why it's hard to articulate because I can't even.

I totally get it.

But whatever that is, soul, spirit, whatever it is, there's a place that kind of is your own, right?

-Exactly.

-Yeah.

I really -- And I'm still stuck on what you said.

In life, we stumble, but you learn from your stumbles.

But if you play it safe, you never stumble, but you never get anywhere.

Right?

-Exactly.

-Yeah.

-That's a great, great piece.

-Thank you.

-It really is a great piece.

-Thank you.

Thank you.

-A muralist's life is like any other artist's, like any other actor or writer or musician.

It's a life of passion, of challenge, trying to make the next big leap in your career and struggling with knowing when it's just time to stop.

It's running a business and balancing a budget.

It's at times nothing more than just plain old hard work.

Murals can be a sign of hope, of change.

They're an indication that someone was willing to invest money to make their building look better, of a neighborhood wanting to draw people in, to make a statement about who they are.

So the next time you see a piece of art on the side of a building, try and take the time to look more closely at it, because all of these elements are just below the surface of that painting on a wall.

[ Woman vocalizing ] ♪♪ -Gustavus Adolphus College equips students to lead purposeful lives and act on the great challenges of our time.

Gustavus -- make your life count.

-Over a billion people live with preventable blindness.

See International partners with volunteer doctors to provide sight-restoring surgeries in underserved communities around the world.

-This organization is united in one mission -- to restore sight to the blind.

-They purify the air I breathe and the water I drink... keep me and the planet cool... and give me a career I love.

Trees -- when we take care of them, they take care of us.

-We all see different in our own ways because different reflects who you are, who you want to be.

The Northern Territory -- different in every sense.