Longing for Attachment
Exhibition Dates: June 14 – July 27, 2024
ARTogether and Oakland Asian Cultural Center co-present “Longing for Attachment,” an exhibition curated by Bushra Gill featuring 30+ Bay Area 1st/2nd generation immigrant and refugee artists reflecting on the notion of attachments.
As immigrants, refugees, and their descendants, we make choices on what to hold onto and what to let go of when moving to another country or culture. Being too attached to a place or way of being can make it hard to form connections to anything new. But our connection to a place is also related to our quality of life and well-being– it links us to neighborhoods and communities where we have lived. Anyone who has migrated from another country or grown up in an immigrant family knows these attachments run deep and true, not needing to be present to have a prominent place in our hearts.
We invite you to join us in reflection of our relationships to attachment, and to celebrate these Bay Area refugee, immigrant, and children of immigrant artists.
Exhibition Dates: June 14 – July 27, 2024
Gallery Hours: Wednesdays through Saturdays, 12 PM – 5 PM
Location: Oakland Asian Cultural Center
388 9th St, Ste 290, Oakland, CA
Curator
Bushra Gill is interested in finding order within the chaos of everyday life through art. She was born in Karachi, Pakistan, and emigrated to Houston, Texas, with her family as a small child. Drawn to art from a young age, she graduated from Pratt Institute in 1994, with a BFA in sculpture. She spent many years of working as a museum educator at various galleries and museums including The Museum of Modern Art, The Drawing Center and The Rotunda Gallery, while also working as a studio assistant to various artists including Maya Lin, Ursula von Rydingsvard and Maria Elena Gonzalez, as well as a career as a clothing designer and boutique owner in New York. In 2009, she moved to northern California with her family and returned to making art. In recent years, Gill has participated in many exhibitions in galleries across the United States.
Exhibiting Artists
Amanda Messina Gerodias
Anita Sulimanovic
Bushra Gill
Christina Xu
Chupis
Dion
Eva Agus
Ezra Mara
Fernanda Martinez
Glish Group
Hargun Mahal Mann
Jaide Lin
Lark
León Hernandez
Leyla Jamil Rzayeva
Linah Sofi
Lorraine Lawson
Mariel Paat
Martin Rodriguez Serrano
Michelle Lin
Narges Valibeigi
Ngân Vũ
Nhien Le
Peter Gee
Renacimiento
Ria Sharma
Russel Arelis
Salma Arastu
Shooting Within
Tatiana Carvalho
Ujjayini Sikha
Vreni Michelini Castillo
YouBeen Kim
Yuting Wang
Performing at the Opening Reception
Nadhi Thekkek (@navadancesf) is a dancer, choreographer, and the Artistic Director of Nava Dance Theatre. Nadhi uses the south Indian dance form of bharatanatyam to navigate place, identity, and politics through the lens of her lived experience as a child of immigrants and an unapologetic South Asian, diasporic woman. She reimagines how bharatanatyam can serve marginalized narratives that need to occupy space in the US right now. Her latest work “Rogue Gestures/Foreign Bodies” sources community interviews, historical texts, and poetry to explore the intersections of labor, agency, and belonging in our South Asian ancestry. Through Nava Dance Theatre, Nadhi also produces and co-facilitates the Unrehearsed Artist Residency Program, where South Asian dancemakers create art that challenges the status quo. For more information on Nadhi, visit www.navadance.org.
Roopa Mahadevan (@roopama) is a leading second-generation Indian classical and crossover vocalist in the American diaspora known for her powerful, emotive voice and collaborative versatility. She leads Roopa in Flux, an ensemble featuring musicians in jazz, soul/R&B, and various global traditions, directs the innovative choir Navatman Music Collective, and sings for leading bharathanatyam/contemporary dancers. She is a soloist on Grammy Award-winning Calling All Dawns, and has been in residence at Banff Center for Arts and Creativity, Hedgebrook, MASS MOCA, and Ryder Farm. FOr more information visit, www.roopamahadevan.com.
