Sara Friedlander: American Women: Birds of Im/Migration
May 10 – November 10, 2019
Inspired by her own grandmother’s immigration journey, Santa Cruz artist Sara Friedlander has created visual narratives to honor the courageous women who left their homelands and families behind, often under great duress. Most spoke no English and holding steadfast to their hopes for a brighter future, faced daunting challenges in order to establish a new life in America.
Each of these mixed media panels highlights the journey of an immigrant or migrant woman. By utilizing visual storytelling to represent a universal tale, Sara has created a narrative based on what she gleaned from the photographs and what she saw in the eyes of each of these women. The result is analogous to creative nonfiction – neither pure fact nor pure fiction.
At this critical time, when immigration is seen as a national and global threat, these portraits can help us remember and reflect deeply on the reality that most Americans – most of us – are relatively recent descendants of im/migrants or are im/migrants ourselves.