Opening Reception: "Connected Diaspora: Central American Visuality in the Age of Social Media"

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC | Free

About the Exhibition

The exhibition casts light on a new generation of artists who visually reflect on U.S. Central American lives and experiences in the era of social media. Their voices have built a creative community that transcends state lines and borders. While their practices range from delicate ceramic sculptures to large scale paintings to digital art, their work coheres around explorations of displacement, war, and trauma, contemplations on everyday life, nature, and architecture, and insights into invisibility and empowerment. Though Central Americans make up the third largest U.S Latinx group, this statistic is not equally reflected in references to Latinx art. Beyond news articles, Central Americans in the diaspora are a creative force leading the way to a more expansive discourse.

In collaboration with exhibition curator and artist Veronica Melendez, Usdan Gallery is proud to present an expanded version of previous iterations of Connected Diaspora, with additional artists and a special publication of the full catalog of the zine “La Horchata.” Created by Melendez and Kimberly Benavides, “La Horchata” has featured the work of almost all 20 "Connected Diaspora" artists—it operates at the heart of the exhibition and the community it celebrates.