Tag: Status Report exhibition at BRIC

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Status Report: Exhibit Confronts Audience With Mexican Immigrants’ Unseen Lives

Dulce Pinzón portrays immigrants like Mexican nanny Minerva Valencia as superheroes. (Photo: Dulce Pinzón/BRIC Exhibition - Click for more)

Dulce Pinzón portrays Mexican immigrants like nanny Minerva Valencia as superheroes. (Photo: Dulce Pinzón/BRIC Exhibition – Click for more)

Delilah Montoya’s photo project Sed: The Trail of Thirst shows a desolate borderland scene dotted with plastic water jugs. The jugs are road signs, stretching into the uncertainty that lurks on the horizon. Human presence is only implied by the feeling of thirst that the image evokes. The migrant –absent from the photograph but etched into the landscape– is a ghostly reminder of the harrowing journey towards the North.

This image confronts visitors as they walk into Brooklyn’s BRIC Rotunda Gallery where Montoya’s work is shown. Bringing together artists from Brooklyn and Mexico, the exhibit Status Report –on view until October 10th– challenges the physical and philosophical landscapes of borders and nations, and looks at the work immigrants do in the context of both their “home” and “host” societies.

Drawing inspiration from the growing presence of Mexican immigrants in New York City, Status Report looks at their contributions to the city’s economy and culture. There are approximately 288,000 immigrants of Mexican origin living in New York, more than double the number in 2000. While their visibility has grown together with their numbers, the show tries to highlight what goes unnoticed as these migrants labor, often in the shadows of the American economy.

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