Crossing Borders: Revisited by ArtsWestchester

revisited

FROM THE

CEO

MANY PEOPLE ARE HUNG UP ON WALLS AND WAYS OF KEEPING PEOPLE OUT, BUT ARTISTS AMPLIFY OUR ABILITY TO SEE THE POSSIBILITIES IN MANAGING THESE BARRIERS IN A WAY THAT BRINGS HOPE TO PEOPLE WHO NEED TO CROSS THEM.”

All Americans have something in common: we have crossed a border at one time or another. Physical borders can be gateways, doors, and impediments; but also, lines that define countries or regions. Admittedly, the international borders are subject to change depending upon world relations. Our boundaries are simply a guide to our way of behaving, where we have established borders as a requirement of a civil society. – This concept is important because it establishes an order; however, in the case of immigration, crossing these so-called borders requires courage, audacity and, in many cases, necessity. Immigration is a monumental issue. In our transient society, it impacts every corner of the world. Our Declaration of Independence, which established a very clear border for the new colonies, states that we have the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. How do our conversations about contemporary immigration align with this? Our national discourse has changed through every presidential administration and it is likely to have new contextual issues as we move into the future.

People journey across borders for a thousand reasons: fear, safety, love… The power of this motivation is what gives a person permission to cross, and our exhibition underscores those reasons as a platform. Borders don’t necessarily mean physical – they can be imaginary, emotional, psychological. These other boundaries can be as defining as real-world impediments. Artists are storytellers and chroniclers; they are thoughtful, and through their eyes we can see a different lens: politically, emotionally, effectively. Many people are hung up on walls and ways of keeping people out, but artists amplify our ability to see the possibilities in managing these barriers in a way that brings hope to people who need to cross them. This exhibition poses philosophical questions about how we think around the physical and conceptual spaces that we build, live in, and protect. – Janet Langsam CEO, ArtsWestchester

TABLE OF

CONTENTS 6 8

FROM THE CURATOR EXHIBITING ARTISTS | 8 | Tomoko Abe | 10 | Natalia Arbelaez | 12 | Siona Benjamin | 14 | Miguel Braceli | 16 | Edwige Charlot | 18 | Simone Couto | 20 | Kiani Ferris | 22 | Salvador Jiménez-Flores | 24 | Romina Gonzales | 26 | Sin-Ying Ho | 28 | Baseera Khan (courtesy Wave Pool Gallery) | 30 | Andrew Kung | 32 | Anina Major | 34 | Linda Sok | 36 | Cheryl Wing-Zi Wong

38 ABOUT ARTSWESTCHESTER / OUR MISSION 39 PERFORMING ARTISTS / ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

FROM THE

CURATOR HOW DO THOSE WHO IDENTIFY AS THIRD-GENERATION IMMIGRANTS NAVIGATE HERITAGE ONE STEP FARTHER FROM ITS SOURCE? HOW DO WE EXPRESS MULTICULTURALISM?”

hat makes a border? Over time, geographic and cultural borders have come to define individual and group identity. Crossing Borders: Revisited features artists who investigate the experience of immigrating and the act of remembering; each artist utilizes their heritage, and their artistic practice as a way of keeping their family legacy relevant as the artist continues to make their own way in a contemporary time and place. This intergenerational exhibition looks at myriad ways in which residents have come to this region. Some call it home and some continuously travel between places. The exhibition reexamines themes initially presented in ArtsWestchester’s 2015 exhibition of a similar title, which was also supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. Almost a decade later, there have been paradigm shifts as well as perennial issues that stem from migration: walls were proposed, a pandemic caused racial vilification, and identities were weaponized. With a new climate for immigration, the scope for this exhibition has expanded since 2015, prompting us to explore the answers to new questions – How do those who identify as third-generation immigrants navigate

heritage one step farther from its source? How do we express multiculturalism? – through the artworks of those who are navigating and experiencing this paradox firsthand. For this show, ArtsWestchester has commissioned three artists to create all-new site-responsive and large-scale artworks to be exhibited in its historically preserved Grand Banking Hall gallery. Siona Benjamin, Anina Major and Cheryl Wing-Zi Wong have made artworks that provide valuable insights to the political and social aspects of migration. The invention of the border has caused so much public discourse that we are in need of artists who can shed light on how our borders drastically influence culture and livelihood. Crossing Borders: Revisited is that beacon, allowing these works to showcase the complexities of 21st Century migration through identity, memory and placemaking. – Adam Chau Curator

DEL

CURADOR ¿CÓMO NAVEGAN SU HERENCIA AQUELLOS QUE SE IDENTIFICAN COMO INMIGRANTES DE TERCERA GENERACIÓN? ¿CÓMO EXPRESAMOS EL MULTICULTURALISMO?”

¿ ué hace una frontera? Con el tiempo, las fronteras geográficas y culturales han llegado a definir la identidad individual y grupal. Crossing Borders: Revisited presenta a artistas que investigan la experiencia de la inmigración y el acto de recordar; cada artista utiliza su patrimonio y su práctica artística como una forma de mantener su legado familiar relevante a medida que el artista continúa haciendo su propio camino en un tiempo y lugar contemporáneos. Esta exposición intergeneracional analiza las innumerables formas en que los residentes han llegado a esta región. Algunos lo llaman hogar y otros viajan continuamente entre lugares. La exposición reexamina los temas presentados inicialmente en la exposición de ArtsWestchester de 2015 de un título similar, que también fue apoyada por el National Endowment for the Arts. Casi una década después, ha habido cambios de paradigma, así como problemas perennes que se derivan de la migración: se propusieron muros, una pandemia causó denigración racial y las identidades fueron atacadas. Con un nuevo clima para la inmigración, el alcance de esta exposición se ha ampliado desde 2015, lo que nos lleva a explorar las respuestas a las nuevas preguntas: ¿Cómo

navegan aquellos que se identifican como inmigrantes de tercera generación por el patrimonio un paso más lejos de su fuente? ¿Cómo expresamos el multiculturalismo? - a través de las obras de arte de aquellos que están navegando y experimentando esta paradoja de primera mano. Para este espectáculo, ArtsWestchester ha encargado a tres artistas la creación de nuevas obras de arte a gran escala que responderán al sitio que se exhibirá en su históricamente conservada galería Grand Banking Hall. Siona Benjamin, Anina Major y Cheryl Wing-Zi Wong han hecho obras de arte que proporcionan información valiosa sobre los aspectos políticos y sociales de la migración. La invención de la frontera ha causado tanto discurso público que necesitamos artistas que puedan arrojar luz sobre cómo nuestras fronteras influyen drásticamente en la cultura y los medios de vida. Crossing Borders: Revisited es ese faro, que permite que estas obras muestren las complejidades de la migración del siglo XXI a través de la identidad, la memoria y la creación de lugares. – Adam Chau Curador

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TOMOKO ABE Crossing Borders - Human and Nature Glass and projection

“Across time and space: I have lately become more conscious of the weight and ephemerality of time, perhaps due to my own and my family’s aging. These slides I took in my 20s, before moving to the U.S., remind me that, while separated in time and space, my perception of the world then was very much parallel to how I see the world now. I am also reminded that our relationship with nature has remained essentially uncorrected and has, in fact, been exacerbated. Between human and nature: I have been interested in the theme of deterioration and regeneration of nature. In continuation of this theme, my recent focus has been on recording the ephemerality of humans and human artifacts. In this work, images of artifacts of human activities, with those depicting the dynamic power of nature, are overlaid.

Between media: The installation consists of fabric meshes that hang from the ceiling, as well as sheets of silkscreenprinted glass, which reference large-scale slides, on pedestals that resemble scaffoldings. Images of the humannature border, such as a coastal highway, breaking water and a wharf from Lzu, and the coastline south of Tokyo, are printed on glass sculptures. Still images of construction sites in Tokyo, as well as water scenes from Lzu, are projected onto fabric frames that are layered between the glass sheets. Overlaid and interacting images reflect the complex relationship between nature and us humans.”

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NATALIA ARBELAEZ Colonización Española, Mestiza Series Terra-cotta, gold

MY WORK TAKES THE PLACE OF A STORYTELLER, FROM PERSONAL NARRATIVES OF MY COLOMBIAN FAMILY’S IMMIGRATION AND RESEARCH OF PRE-COLUMBIAN SOUTH AMERICAN PRESENCE TO MY AMERICAN, LATCHKEY, AFTERSCHOOL CARTOON UPBRINGING.” Each of Arbelaez’s identities plays a role in her artwork to collectively illustrate a self-portrait of what it is like to be a Mestizo, Colombian and American hybrid. She combines these stories with research, familial narratives and cartoon embellishments that create surreal stories; a way to autobiographically narrate history with its ups and downs of humor and tears. Arbelaez uses artwork to research undervalued histories, such as that of Latin Americans, Amerindians and Women of Color. Through her works, she explores how these identities are lost through conquest, migration, and time; how they are gained through family, culture and exploration; and how they are passed down through tradition, preservation and genetic memory.

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SIONA BENJAMIN Amistad - A Slave Ship for a New Century Acrylic, mixed media, 22k gold leaf on wood panel

“Based on research of the concept of Eugenics, I was inspired to make a boat-like triptych inspired by the retable-like Medieval and Renaissance European structures found in many churches that open up to display beautiful JudeoChristian themes.

I COMBINED THAT SHAPE WITH THE IDEA OF A BOAT...THE SLAVE SHIP, AND THE BOATS CARRYING NUMEROUS REFUGEES HOPEFULLY INTO SAFETY AND ASYLUM FROM THEIR COUNTRIES AND DICTATORS OF PERSECUTION.” Many blue men sit packed in the golden boat, huddled, motionless, scared yet hopeful. But hopeful for what? Hopeful not to be thrown back into the ocean? Hopeful not to be sent back to their destruction and dissolution. Lilith who is Kali, who is also Medusa, is always blamed for her cries of mercy and justice. Is this the moral and human condition of our era? The letter Shin, which is Shaddai, one of the names of God and equivalent to the number three hundred in the Hebrew alphabet, represents Divine power and potential peace.”

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MIGUEL BRACELI The Last Swim Video

THE POWER OF ABSORPTION OF WATER IS A REMINDER, THROUGH OUR BODIES, THAT THIS PLACE LEAVES SOMETHING IN US; BUT ALSO, WE ALL LEAVE SOMETHING IN THIS PLACE.” “This is a collective performance from the day before I left Skowhegan School of Painting. A group of artists entered the lake with soluble paper to be absorbed by the water. The performance unfolded as a ceremony of closure, a gift to the place, offering our memories to the lake. It was a poetical gesture of archiving the experiences in the landscape, experiences that won’t disappear because the water will contain them. The power of absorption of water is a reminder, through our bodies, that this place leaves something in us; but also, we all leave something in this place. Even when this experience ends, it will remain. From vast geographies to more intimate connections on a human scale, many of my works address notions of borders, migration, identity, human rights and geopolitical conflicts. These works explore political identities from a communal perspective; creating self-organized social structures to collectively rebuild the imagery of states, nations and other forms of governmental territories; aiming to propose emancipatory systems based on a social, environmental and pedagogical approach to the land. Within larger artistic research, I am interested in the relationship between the body and the territory, between the individual being and the collective body, and between order and contingency of open-ended large-scale projects in the expanded field.”

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EDWIGE CHARLOT Vizyon Grenn Yo (Visions of Seeds) Ink on chiffon, organza, and voile

AS AN ARTIST, I WORK WITH THE CONCEPT OF MIGRATION BY DRAWING INSPIRATION FROM NATURE, AS EXPRESSED BY OUR PLANT AND ANIMAL RELATIVES.”

Edwige Charlot is a French-born Haitian immigrant artist and designer. As a descendant of the home island of Ayiti, Charlot uses nature-based motifs to grapple with Caribbean and Creole identities and culture. “Artmaking goes beyond humanizing migration; it allows for an understanding of migration’s transformative nature through ritual, reflection, storytelling, testimony and refraction. We’ve shifted our understanding of migration as a dynamic process and life cycle to discourse about social constructs – particularly the concept of borders. Borders are tools to support, challenge or align with different ideologies and political strategies. As an artist, I work with the concept of migration by drawing inspiration from nature, as expressed by our plant and animal relatives. Using natural migrations as

a source of understanding for other cultural phenomena, such as creolization (cultural adaption) and diaspora (dispersion of a people and culture from their original homeland), as a dynamic process of movement and regeneration. Exploring migration in an art context gives me an opportunity to interact with the inherent fluidity of movement, adaption and imagination.”

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SIMONE COUTO Flag For All Donated immigrant garments, quotes from immigrants, child-bed rack

Flag for All (2019) is a mixed-media artwork that features a child-bed rack that is 80”x28” in size. The piece is an element of the This Place Called Home project, a social engagement and multimedia installation focused on the diaspora and immigrants’ histories of settlement and displacement. Couto created the flag using clothes that were donated by interviewees, as well as quotes that were extracted from their conversations and hand-painted into the weave of fabric strips. Through the work, the artist conveys a powerful reminder that human migration has been part of our history for millions of years and is deeply entwined with our identities.

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KIANI FERRIS Daifuku Photograph

BY SIMPLY POINTING AT THE BOOK’S VARIOUS WORDS AND PHRASES WITH ACCOMPANYING IMAGES, A VISITOR CAN EFFECTIVELY COMMUNICATE VARIOUS QUESTIONS AND STATEMENTS TO A JAPANESE SPEAKER.”

“My favorite childhood book was YUBISASHI JAPAN English Edition (The Original “POINT-AND-SPEAK” Phrasebook) by Toshiya Enomoto. This guide is ideal for tourists visiting Japan who have little to no Japanese language skills. By simply pointing at the book’s various words and phrases with accompanying images, a visitor can effectively communicate various questions and statements to a Japanese speaker.” With no tangible prospects of visiting their ancestral country of Japan, Ferris would find refuge within the gridded pages of an illustrated book, each cell housing a small, brightly illustrated image. Unlike the rest of the book, the “food” section featured crisp photographs that depicted

meals and treats in their ideal forms. The exhibited works are reproductions of these images, photographed with a child’s two-megapixel toy camera. By capturing, blurring and stretching these images, Ferris challenges fluency and renders the category of language obsolete. Desires for ancestral rekindling are transformed into enveloping sensations of color, flavor and desire.

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SALVADOR JIMÉNEZ-FLORES La Jaula de Oro Three-color screenprint

BY REIMAGINING WHAT AN ALTERNATIVE FUTURE COULD LOOK LIKE THROUGH MY ART, I SEEK TO RESIST LABELS THAT HAVE BEEN PUT ON MYSELF AND OTHER PEOPLE OF COLOR.”

“All over the world, as we identify people by their physical appearance, residue of colonial labels still persists. The act of resistance starts when we fight against those who attempt to prevent us from growing. By reimagining what an alternative future could look like through my art, I seek to resist labels that have been put on myself and other people of color.

futurism. The challenge of being bicultural and bilingual is that I live concurrently in two different worlds. I adapt to both worlds, but adapting involves losing some part of myself in order to grow. I embrace these two worlds in my art, melding visual and cultural references from both to produce artwork with a magical realism twist.

The move from a rural town in México to a major metropolis in the United States had a tremendous impact on my life and my art. In my work, I document the journey of adapting to life in the United States all while looking back at what I left behind in México.

As an artist of color, I might be forced to identify with one, many, or none of the labels assigned to me, such as Latino, Chicano, American, etc.”

My work explores the politics of identity, the state of double consciousness, and the outlook of ‘the other.’ I address issues of colonization, migration, history, cultural appropriation and

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ROMINA GONZALES I Am Glass, silver nitrate, copper, stainless steel, epoxy

Romina Gonzales is an interdisciplinary artist working towards the expansion of consciousness and creation of cultural capital from a post-colonial lens. She portrays gestures and narratives through material responses by questioning givens and offering alternative perspectives. She uses the intrinsic properties of materials to open up possibilities in understanding, seeing and believing. In the pursuit of collective healing, she finds applications for ancestral practices into the needs of our contemporary existence. Influences come from wellness, spirituality, science and the dissonant narratives that uphold society. She explains:

WHEN WE LOSE OUR CONNECTION TO NATURE, WE LOSE OUR SPIRIT, OUR SENSE OF SELF.” Perceiving industrial materials that we take for granted as alive brings back our sense of awareness. Understanding their sources, as well as their role in our daily lives, generates questions that we often choose not to answer. Managing dissonance is a challenge in the strive for balance that can be attained by communing polarity. Gonzales features sculptures made of sulfur, copper and glass to invite spirit back into our modern world and uses the innate qualities of these materials to touch upon socioeconomic and environmental issues, wellness and healing, ancestral practices, and de-coloniality.

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SIN-YING HO Beyond Borders-Beyond Civilizations Ceramic

WE ARE CONNECTED AND, WITH CROSSED BORDERS, NOT ONLY IN A MACROSCOPE WORLD, BUT ALSO IN A MICROSCOPE WORLD AND THE VIRTUAL WORLD.”

“Drawing on my Asian background and experiences in Western culture, I constantly explore the “collision of cultures” in my ceramic work. I manipulate the forms by methods of deconstructing the narrative and then reconstructing it by transforming the familiar forms into unfamiliar and unidentified sculptures. This is basically for my own purposes but also to surprise the viewer with multiple images, icons, signs and symbols as a surface narration. To further highlight temporal differences, I combine traditional hand-painted imagery with the use of new technologies such as computer-generated decals. East vs. West, past vs. present, symbol vs. language, painting vs. digital decal transfers, vessel vs. sculpture and 2D vs. 3D – These elements collide and evolve into one. This mélange

of modern and traditional ideas and various clay techniques evokes questions of identity and memory, while also paying tribute to one of the finest ceramic traditions in the globalized world. During this unprecedented time caused by Covid-19, I strongly admit that we are no longer living in a singularity society or country. We are connected and, with crossed borders, not only in a macroscope world, but also in a microscope world and the virtual world. I was inspired by the images of the actual coronavirus, 5G cloud, corporate logos and stock market index charts, which I then transferred by a digital decal technique. These images of the living virus and consumerism, and the trace of technology, create a visual metaphor that expresses the relationship between the never-changing human nature and the continuing changes of our physical world.”

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BASSEERA KHAN (courtesy Wave Pool Gallery) Muslims Equals America Wool yarn

Similar to Baseera Khan’s Act Up (Psychedelic Prayer Rugs) from 2017, which combines visual iconography traditional to Islam along with brightly colored symbols of personal significance to the artist, MUSLIMS = AMERICA employs the Islamic prayer rug to contemporary secular concepts— weaving together the artist’s political and queer alliances with a daily spiritual practice. These incredible rugs were handwoven by a group of five Bhutanese refugee women living in Cincinnati —Gita Rai, Durga Limbu, Bishnu Limbu, Laxmi Rai and Sita Gurung – with the assistance and training of Rowe Schnure and embroidery by Fabiola Rodriguez. The work is exhibited courtesy of Wave Pool, a sociallyengaged art center that acts as a conduit for community change through artist opportunities and support by pairing communities’ knowledge of their needs with artists’ sense of possibility. Wave Pool provides a structure whereby contemporary art and artists can be integral contributors to the fabric and success of its city, country and beyond by helping to build relationships and collective knowledge around complex issues, and centering the insights and experience of those most intimately affected. Wave Pool is best known for initiating and supporting artist-driven social practice projects and exhibiting interactive projects that proactively support its neighbors, thereby stretching beyond its gallery walls.

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ANDREW KUNG Dreaming on the Hudson Photograph

INSPIRED BY THE HUDSON RIVER SCHOOL’S ROMANTICIZED PAINTINGS OF THE RIVER VALLEY, I DOCUMENT MY FRIENDS IN OPEN AIR, RECLAIMING – AND THEREBY CONTESTING – THEIR STAKE IN THE AMERICAN PASTORAL.”

“Dreaming on the Hudson is an ongoing project that examines Asian American men in the natural world using nature – specifically the Hudson River Valley – as a vehicle of escape and rebellion against American imaginations of masculinity and stewardship. Inspired by the Hudson River School’s romanticized paintings of the river valley, I document my friends in open air, reclaiming – and thereby contesting – their stake in the American pastoral. The intimate moments of togetherness reflect a quiet, albeit radical, bucolic dream that subverts the male gaze and the history of land ownership and power.”

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ANINA MAJOR Ostracons of the Atlantic Ceramic shards, cowrie, crushed clam and conch shells

Ostracons of the Atlantic is a poetic sculptural expression of the fragmented histories inherited across the Black diaspora. It embraces ruins as a signifier of temporal in-between-ness. Shards composed from mass produced, slip-casted, and racially charged ceramic souvenirs, as well as fragments of the artist’s woven works, serve as present-day ostracons— pieces of pottery, usually broken off from a vase. In the installation, materiality creates an unconventional monument that memorializes the fragility of the Black experience. Through the language of land art and postminimalist sculpture, it illustrates the delicate tension between destruction and perseverance. It rejects colonial systems of value, counters the collective act of forgetting and reclaims the remnants of lost histories. In The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory, Nobel Prize-winning poet and playwright Derek Walcott says: “Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole. The glue that fits the pieces is the sealing of its original shape. It is such a love that reassembles our African and Asiatic fragments, the cracked heirlooms whose restoration shows its white scars. This gathering of broken pieces is the care and pain of the Antilles, and if the pieces are disparate, ill-fitting, they contain more pain than their original sculpture, those icons and sacred vessels taken for granted in their ancestral places. Antillean art is this restoration of our shattered histories, our shards of vocabulary, our archipelago becoming a synonym for pieces broken off from the original continent.”

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LINDA SOK Mending fragments of a memory Fabric, metal trinkets

THE WORK ACKNOWLEDGES THE DISCONNECT I FEEL FROM MY CAMBODIAN HERITAGE, THE LOSS OF LANGUAGE AS A RESULT OF MIGRATION, AND THE BREAKING DOWN OF FAMILIAL RELATIONSHIPS CONSEQUENTLY.”

With Mending fragments of a memory, Linda Sok utilizes discarded fabrics, which her grandmother and aunt had sewn together many years ago, to produce a cross-generational collaborative work that explores the use of textiles as a means to share language and culture. “The work acknowledges the disconnect I feel from my Cambodian heritage, the loss of language as a result of migration, and the breaking down of familial relationships consequently. The work looks towards piecing together stories from my childhood, most significantly reflecting on a story about my grandmother. The story tells of her fleeing the Khmer Rouge genocidal regime with her gold jewelry sewn into the inside of her clothing which, in turn, funded the means to pay for her and her children’s safety. Little golden trinkets in the form of flowers, swirls, beads, petals, phoenixes and lotus leaves adorn the fabrics. These metal trinkets have been hand-stitched into the material to cover the Khmer text previously painted onto the fabric, which speaks about experiences and encounters with war. These concealed elements create secrets that are only shared between myself and those who know of the stories. Initially intended to be used as blankets and bedsheets, the lengths of fabric worked on by my aunt and grandmother have been repurposed, cut and further manipulated to speak to methods of handing down matrilineal practices and the process of piecing together fragments of familial stories from the Khmer Rouge period. I would like to thank my aunt, Thear Sok, and my grandmother, Ly Sok, for providing the textiles and materials for this work.”

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CHERYL WING-ZI WONG LUCKY ILLUMINATION Steel, nylon thread, Good Luck candies

Referencing the chandeliers of traditional Chinatown dim sum parlors, LUCKY ILLUMINATION is a suspended sculpture composed of metallic-wrapped Good Luck candies. This architectural fixture is created from candies often given out in Chinese culture to commemorate life events and new beginnings; sweets to usher in joy for a new lunar year; sweets as consolation to follow the bitterness of death at a funeral. Since the start of the pandemic, Chinatown communities across North America have been disproportionately impacted by anti-Asian rhetoric and violence. Chinatowns are shrinking, as residents and longtime businesses – cavernous Cantonese banquet halls among them – are forced out by gentrification and rising rents. These parlors have been at the core of family and social gatherings for decades. Within family associations, elders are passing away. A crucial part of our Chinatown history is disappearing.

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ABOUT ARTSWESTCHESTER For more than 55 years, ArtsWestchester has been the community’s connection to the arts. Founded in 1965, it is the largest private not-for-profit arts council in New York State. ArtsWestchester provides programs and services that enrich the lives of everyone in Westchester County. ArtsWestchester helps fund concerts, exhibitions and plays through grants; brings artists into schools and community centers; advocates for the arts; and builds audiences through diverse marketing initiatives. In 1998, ArtsWestchester purchased the nine-story neo-classical bank building at 31 Mamaroneck Avenue which has since been transformed into a multi-use resource for artists, cultural organizations and the community. The landmark historical building features ArtsWestchester’s offices, artist studios, creative businesses and a two-story gallery located on the first floor which is utilized for art exhibitions, educational programs and intimate music and dance performances.

OUR MISSION ArtsWestchester’s mission is to create an equitable, vibrant and sustainable Westchester County in which the arts are integral to and integrated into every facet of life. The arts are for everyone, amplifying the multi-ethnic and culturally diverse voices within our community. The arts offer opportunities for advancement and personal growth. The arts are a catalyst for systemic change, economic development, and community empowerment. The arts create life-affirming experiences, celebrating differences and finding shared values. ArtsWestchester supports the arts in Westchester through leadership, funding, programming, education, advocacy, audience cultivation and professional development. We work to ensure the accessibility and diversity of the arts, at every level for every resident and visitor in Westchester County. As ArtsWestchester looks to the future, and in recognition of the current needs of the communities we serve, we reaffirm and further commit to advancing social justice through our policies and practices. We acknowledge that this work is on-going and commit to enacting a strategic vision that is proactive and responsive in shaping a just, fair, and equitable Westchester. For more information about ArtsWestchester, please visit: artsw.org

PERFORMING ARTISTS Jomion & The Uklos Jomion & The Uklos is a family band from Benin, West Africa that combines traditional rhythms and songs from their country’s culture with reggae, salsa and jazz to create vibrant, relaxed dance music, they have named Whedo-jazz. They are based in Brooklyn, NY and are currently teaching West African Drumming at Stonybrook University (Long Island). Their openness to other cultures earned them a collaboration with the Brazilian Ensemble of the University of Florida. They performed for Lincoln Center Outdoors, La Casita, B.B. King Blues Club in Times Square, Bric TV Show, Music Time in Africa (Voice of America radio show) and recorded with icon Bobby McFerrin. Zhenya Lopatnik Hailed as the contemporary Jewish “songbird of Ukraine,” Zhenya Lopatnik’s songs stir the soul and awaken memories even for those too young to remember. Heym Un Veg (Between Home and The Way) takes listeners on a theatrical journey to life in Ukraine, with a focus on Ukrainian Jewish community. Through storytelling, the performance threads cultures and generations, weaving together Lopatnik’s rich repertoire of Yiddish folk songs, her original compositions and the poetry of prominent Ukrainian Yiddish poets. In her ArtsWestchester performance, Lopatnik will be joined by Oren Neiman (guitar) and Ivan Barenboim (clarinet).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The exhibition and its commissioned works of art were made possible thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts’s Grants for Arts Projects program. We thank the ArtsWestchester Board of Directors, ArtsWestchester Arts Committee, and Wave Pool Gallery for their support and collaboration on this project.

This exhibition is made possible in part thanks to support from the National Endowment for the Arts

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31 Mamaroneck Avenue, White Plains, NY | 914.428.4220 | artsw.org