Almost Home: Between Staying and Leaving a Phantom Land

Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Programs, New York, 2017

Featuring works by a group of diverse artists -Wafaa Bilal, Keren Benbenisty, Juanli Carrión, Daniel Greenfield-Campoverde, Claudia Joskowicz, Ayesha Kamal Khan, Dana Levy, Esperanza Mayobre, Elham Rokni, and Karina AguileraSkvirsky-Almost Home explores complex and timely issues relating to physical displacement and migration - detachment vs. embrace, estrangement vs. connection, alienation vs. belonging, insider vs. outsider, transience vs. permanence, and foreigner vs. native.

Additionally, Dror discusses in her essay, how the roles of geography, family and personal history, memory, cultural identification, and personal identity influence the experience engendered by displacement or migration?  She writes, “In situations of journeying from place to place, whether temporarily, or with the intent of permanent resettlement, a strong impulse to retain one’s otherness competes with an even stronger one to blend in.” The artists of Almost Home examine the experience of living between places and cultures, raising questions about locality and its roles. They often address these issues by materializing places from memory. Whether their works were inspired by their personal immigration experience, or those close to them, these artists’ exploration of attachment and detachment and of insider and outsider, underlines the idea of connecting with more than one place at a time.