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When Home Won't Let You Stay

Migration Through Contemporary Art



 

Join The Conversation

 

When Home Won’t Let You Stay is about telling stories of migration. Although the exhibition relays many such stories, no single exhibition can include every story. Migration and issues of home and belonging are personal matters for many of us. More voices—your voices—are crucial for engaging in profound conversations about the issues this exhibition addresses. In “Join the Conversation,” we invite you to share your reflections on migration, home, identity, and belonging, and read others’ responses.

 


Visualizing Migration

 

 

 


Defining Home

 

 

 

 


Your Submissions to Join the Conversation

Thank you for joining the conversation. Encourage your friends to participate by tagging us in your social media channels.

Maggie

Do you have objects that tell your migration story? What are they?

When I was young, I came across a group portrait of my grandmother with her mother and siblings among our family photos. I remember talking with my mom about who each person in the picture was and how they left Russia in the first decade of the 20th century and came to the U.S. I still cherish this photograph. My favorite part of looking at it? Seeing the family resemblance passed down from my great-grandmother to my grandmother, to my mother, to me. It makes me feel close to my Russian Jewish heritage and to the story of where we came from and how we got here.

Airam

How do you make a home in a new place?

When I arrived to the US I was lucky to live near a market that carried some of the food I ate back home. It was nice to walk the aisles and see the products that were so familiar to me. I would make a point to have one or two new friends over and celebrate every holiday, every tradition, making the flavors and recipes from home the centerpiece of these celebrations. Little by little, the home I knew appeared infront of me. Sharing old traditions with new friends is a way to make home in a new place.

Jessica

How have you seen migrants represented in the news and media?

Beginning in 2017, I noticed that the news and media focused on the amount of migrants "advancing" towards the US / Mexico border. Most of the images accompanying the news showed large groups of people stretching miles; a visual that sadly lends more towards a negative depiction instigated by Trump's rhetoric. Most recently, the focus has been on the devastating orphan crisis created by the Trump admin's policies of separating children from their parents at the border. The visual imagery of crying children is heartbreaking. Their parents sacrificed their lives and their family in order to come to the US for a better life. Similar to the many who did so before them, via the ports of entry of Ellis Island in NY and Angel Island in SF.

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Join the Conversation: Visualizing Migration

Thank you for your interest in joining the conversation. Please select your desired question and type your answer in the appropriate field.

If you don't want to leave your full name, you can leave your first name or use a pseudonym.

Selected submissions will be featured on this page and in our social media channels.

 

 


Join the Conversation: Defining Home

Thank you for your interest in joining the conversation. Please select your desired question and type your answer in the appropriate field.

If you don't want to leave your full name, you can leave your first name or use a pseudonym.

Selected submissions will be featured on this page and in our social media channels.

 

 


Join the Conversation: Identity and Belonging

Thank you for your interest in joining the conversation. Please select your desired question and type your answer in the appropriate field.

If you don't want to leave your full name, you can leave your first name or use a pseudonym.

Selected submissions will be featured on this page and in our social media channels.


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The Cantor Arts Center is located at the intersection of Museum Way and Lomita Drive in the heart of the arts district on the Stanford campus. The Cantor faces the Bing Concert Hall across Palm Drive, northwest of The Oval and the Main Quad.

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Stanford, CA 94305-5060

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