This winter’s exhibit at Tucson’s YWCA has now closed but the powerful imagery displayed at “The Path of the Migrant: Raw Reality through the Arts,” continues to haunt. Never has the old adage “A picture is worth a thousand words,” been so true as it is in this collection of graphics by artists around the world.
I am posting a few of the photos I took of the artwork to keep them in the public gaze. Current rhetoric around the issue of migration is too often reductive and soul-deadening. These images give the viewer the opportunity to drop into a place of depth behind the words, and through the eyes of these artists, quietly reflect on what migration and displacement looks like.
“Each artist has represented in a graphic way their personal conception of the migratory phenomenon, either by their own experience, by that experienced by a close relative, a friend, an acquaintance or by having learned through the media. Where the transit from the simple to the complex, from the playful to the harsh, from light to dark, is perceived. From what is proper to what is foreign, from action to contemplation and very likely from the present to the future.” …From the exhibit press release.
“We are People not Papers,” Erendida Mancilla, Mexico
The acclaimed international poster art collection “LA MIGRACIÓN: una mirada a través del cartel” originally featured in the 14th International Poster Biennial of Mexico in 2016, and promoted by the National Commission of Human Rights in Mexico, was curated from over 900 personal entries.
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Art & Faith in the Desert 