GA L L E RY G U ID E
Edra Soto, Graft, 2022
Lydia Nakashima Degarrod, Scattered Seeds of the Cotton Bolls, 2021 (detail)
Here Now: Art and Migration brings together a group of seven international and national artists whose creative practice explores concepts of borders, movement, and migration across local urban centers and global geographies. Here Now investigates critical themes of transformation, presence, absence, and their impact on our sense of place within the landscape, asserting that borders are complex sites of negotiation and transgression. Through the use of urban intervention, Sajjad Abbas (Baghdad, Iraq) confronts the governments and military powers that control borders. In I Can See You, Abbas momentarily inverts the power dynamic to empower Baghdad citizens who cannot move freely in a city surveilled and partitioned by violence. The politics of movement is also the focus of artist Paula Higa (Williston, VT) who reflects on the complexities of human mobility and the many reasons for migration through choreography, as she interrogates themes of rebirth, transition, and new beginnings. Edra Soto (Chicago, IL) examines notions of displacement and belonging within colonial histories. Soto’s Graft Series reconstructs Puerto Rican architectural
motifs as immersive, interactive sculptures. Signifying experiences of duality, the artist evokes movement, transportation, and naturalization as she transports observers to other histories and locales. Artists featured in Here Now are empowered by ideas of transformation and their sense of place, whether in urban or natural environs. Matthew Schrader (NY, NY/Middlebury, VT) considers geographical and temporal aspects of migration, drawing our attention to complex histories grounded within the physical landscape and shaped by colonization and industrialization. Schrader examines how displaced species, such as The Tree of Heaven, proliferate and transform the landscape to create new environments. Verónica Gaona (Houston, TX) observes how migrants are both invisible and visible, defined by a multiplicity of identities and intergenerational legacies. Gaona utilizes the aesthetics and materials of trokiando subculture—including truck panels, chrome plates, and bald tires—to commemorate Mexican communities who are transnational as they move back and forth across borders. Here Now artists such as Gaona and Schrader examine the fluidity of borders and identity through creative process and materials. Lydia Nakashima Degarrod (Oakland, CA) thoughtfully employs traditional materials and techniques from Japan and South America to signify memory and healing in her installation, Scattered Seeds of the Cotton Bolls, as she considers a pattern of migration, relocation, and dislocation. Teresa Baker (Los Angeles, CA) combines natural and artificial materials to create abstract landscapes that imagine vast spaces and human motion within them. Through her choice of symbolically rich materials—beads, yarn, buckskin, and artificial turf—Baker’s hand-crafted works convey the ways in which histories, identities, and boundaries animate our understandings of place. Featuring some of the leading contemporary artists working today, Here Now: Art and Migration evokes the complexity of migration and borders beyond mere statistics or depictions in the media, to define a space in the here and now. Through their choice of materials and visual languages, Here Now artists challenge conventional notions of borders as fixed. They reimagine borders as sites of historical investigations, social reckoning, and conduits of an emerging aesthetic. — Dr. Sarah Rogers, Visiting Asst. Prof. of History of Art & Architecture, Middlebury College and Heather Ferrell, BCA’s Curator and Director of Exhibitions, Co-Curators
Verónica Gaona, Migrant Metropolis (To know and to dream at the same time series), 2022-present
CHECKLIST SAJJAD ABBAS I Can See You, 2013 single channel video, 5:03 min and digital print, 24 x 36" TERESA BAKER 1998, 2023 Yard Work, 2023 Sunday, 2023 oil pastel and ledger paper 11 x 8.5" each Courtesy of Halsey McKay Gallery, New York
TERESA BAKER Low Pitched, 2023 beads, yarn, willow, buckskin, artificial sinew on artificial turf 78 x 93.5" Courtesy of Antonio Murzi and Halsey McKay Gallery, New York
TERESA BAKER Transplanted, 2023 acrylic, buckskin, and yarn on artificial turf 95 x 31" Courtesy of de boer, Los Angeles
LYDIA NAKASHIMA DEGARROD Scattered Seeds of the Cotton Bolls, 2021 74 flowers, mulberry, and Yerba Buena fibers, embroidered and printed dimensions variable VERÓNICA GAONA Trans---fer, 2023 acrylic, rubber dust, Ford f-150 window glass dust, smooth tire 88 x 120 x 24" VERÓNICA GAONA For those who do not return in life there is always death (Homage to David Gomez), 2021 truck burnout sounds
Here Now: Art and Migratiion, installation view, 2024
VERÓNICA GAONA Migrant Metropolis (To know and to dream at the same time series), 2022-present Ford F-150 body parts, aluminum sheets, and archived prints on aluminum sheets 86 x 98 x 22" PAULA HIGA The Migrant Body, 2023 single channel video, 12 min doors, sand, and digital prints dimensions variable MATTHEW SCHRADER M. Obultra 3, 2021 framed woodcut, photographs, painted wooden objects, PVC transparencies, vitrine table (painted MDF tray, glass sheet, metal stand), Ailanthus altissima seed pods dimensions variable
Matthew Schrader, M. Obultra 3, 2021 (detail)
EDRA SOTO Graft, 2022 mixed media 24 x 19” Courtesy of the Artist and Engage Projects, Chicago
EDRA SOTO Graft, 2022 mixed media 29 x 24" Courtesy of the Artist and Engage Projects, Chicago
EDRA SOTO Graft I and V (GRAFT Series), 2023 mixed media on Sintra, viewfinders, inkjet prints, mirror 92.5 x 57" each Courtesy of the Artist and Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York
All works Courtesy of the Artist unless indicated otherwise. Price Upon Request.
RELATED PUBLIC PROGRAMS
Sarah Audsley, Landlock X (detail), 2023
LITERARY INTERSECTIONS Here Now: Art and Migration Thursday, February 22, 2024, 6-7:30pm BCA Center Literary Intersections presents topical writing with textual and visual affinities with BCA exhibit, Here Now: Art and Migration. Featured writers include Vermont poet Sarah Audsley, author of Landlock X (2023), and Leslie Sainz, author of Have You Been Long Enough at Table (2023).
FAMILY ART SATURDAY April 20, 2024, 11-1pm BCA Center, Church Street outdoors Get creative and make art together at Family Art Saturday! Come enjoy a free drop-in art activity at the BCA Center inspired by our exhibition, Here Now: Art and Migration. All gallery programs are free and open to the public.
MIGRATION AND CONTEMPORARY CULTURES IN VERMONT Thursday, March 7, 2024, 6–7:30pm BCA Center Dr. Pablo Bose, University of Vermont will moderate a lively conversation with Negina Azimi and Abdullah Hafizi of the global arts collective ArtLords (originally based in Afghanistan) and Here Now artist Paula Higa. Co-sponsored by UVM Global and Regional Studies.
SCHOOL VISITS BCA gallery educators lead inquiry-driven group tours that encourage close looking, critical thinking, and thought-provoking conversation. We link these gallery conversations to hands-on art activities that explore exhibition themes, materials, and artistic processes. We welcome public, private, and homeschool students in grades pre-K to 12 and beyond. Program fee: $10 per student. Groups are invited to apply for a partial or full scholarship. Please contact Kristin Dykstra, Gallery Learning and Programs Coordinator, at kdykstra@burlingtoncityarts.org for more information or to reserve a visit.
Here Now: Art and Migration is co-curated by Dr. Sarah Rogers, Visiting Asst. Prof. of History of Art & Architecture, Middlebury College and Heather Ferrell, Curator/Director of Exhibitions, BCA Center.
FEATURED ARTISTS: Sajjad Abbas, Baghdad, Iraq Teresa Baker, Los Angeles, CA Lydia Nakashima Degarrod, Oakland, CA Verónica Gaona, Houston, TX Paula Higa, Williston, VT Matthew Schrader, NY, NY / Middlebury, VT Edra Soto, Chicago, IL
Here Now: Art and Migration is sponsored in part by the Maslow Family Foundation. Hospitality sponsors: Lake Champlain Chocolates, Farrell Distributing, and William Hill Estate Winery. Burlington City Arts is supported in part by the Vermont Arts Council & the National Endowment for the Arts.
135 CHURCH STREET, BURLINGTON, VERMONT, 05401 BURLINGTONCITYARTS.ORG