LEAVINGS/BELONGINGS AT SITE SANTA FE

DISPLACED: Contemporary Artists Confront the Global Refugee Crisis

Yu-Wen Wu (Taiwan/US) and Harriet Bart (US) present Leavings/Belongings, a work that evolved from a SITE Center artist residency and public program at SITE Santa Fe.

Displaced: Contemporary Artists Confront the Global Refugee Crisis is an exhibition focusing on human migrations and displacements of the past, present, and future. Through works created in a range of media, artists from around the globe foreground forgotten histories, ask us to bear witness to the highest levels of human displacement on record, and imagine futures where migration is essential for survival. The exhibition poses critical questions around this global crisis, and illuminates the complexities surrounding the urgent social, political, and environmental issues that frame the circumstances of displacement.

The show includes the work of 12 internationally acclaimed artists, and is accompanied by community-centered education and public programs that offer accessible entry points to experiencing and understanding the global refugee crisis. The goals of Displaced are to bring this vast and urgent crisis to the forefront of our visitors’ consciousness, cultivate an understanding and appreciation of refugees that reside in northern New Mexico communities, and plant a seed to inspire action for positive social change both locally and globally.

SITE Exhibition Gallery Guide

Tell Me 2020
16:33 HD video

Tell Me is a single channel video work by Yu-Wen Wu (Boston) with music composed by Beau Kenyon (Boston/DesMoines).
Tell Me explores displacement from the personal perspectives of the migration journey--with immigrant, refugee, and the public from around the world with whom Wu had created opportunities to engage through the Leavings/Belongings project. Voice recordings and stories represented in this video were captured during interviews and 50 sessions of Wu’s community engagement works as part of the Leavings/Belongings.
In Tell Me, Wu wove together imagery and narratives and Kenyon’s sound score to represent both the literal and abstract nature embedded in these complex experiences and journeys.

BRINGING HUMAN MIGRATION CLOSER TO HOME
by Ray Mark Rinaldi
NEW YORK TIMES May 8, 2020