August 26 - September 11, 2026
118 Chambers Street
Artists: Tatiana Arocha, Cynthia Chen, Yaching Cheung, Claudia Cortinez, Mauricio Cortés Ortega, Marco DaSilva, Nicholas D’Ornellas, fields harrington, Frankie Tejada Lizardo, Rodrigo Moreira, Alva Mooses, Mari Nagem, Eiko Nishida, Gabriela Salazar, Sok Song, Catalina Tuca, Pedro Wainer, and Farangiz Yusupova
Curated by Nicolas Poblete
against (dis)integration
a curatorial statement
by Nicolas Poblete
We live in imaginary countries.
Etel Adnan
Us migrants recognize that integration and disintegration are not so different. The prefix separating them (dis-, this signal of opposition) is a liar. Integration and disintegration are not opposites. They’re one and the same.
Rebuilding home elsewhere, whether by choice or necessity, always erodes some part of the self. This violence is enacted at multiple levels — from quiet social signals to coercive legislation — deployed under the liberal fantasy of cultural unity. If this is to be your home, lose that accent, that piece of wisdom, that memory: those don’t belong here. (Dis)integration is our sacrificial offering, the bargain we make.
Home, then, may seem unattainable, frozen in the past, or perpetually stuck in the horizon. Roots grow back slowly, precariously, nourished only by the warm blanket of solidarity. The work of community organizing is to construct the infrastructure to facilitate this process. But another, perhaps more radical, goal is to reimagine how we even think of migration.
What if we refused to disintegrate? What if we committed to pick up the pieces of those who disintegrated before us? Those pieces might be the seeds we need to plant and care for in our new land before we may call it home.
Art helps us imagine.
This exhibition, organized with LAZO and The Brave House, brings together eighteen artists meditating expansively on migration and belonging. The works on view offer not a declaration, but a constellation of joys, hopes, and aches orbiting around the immigrant experience.
Across drawing, printmaking, photography, painting, textile, and sculpture, we find the scars of nationalism and late stage capitalism: legal documents, traces of labor exploitation, lost horizons, and ruined surfaces. Yet rooted optimism pervades over it all, found in odes to the fragility and vigor of nature, to life blooming from struggle, and to acts of repair and transformation.
Before We Call It Home builds on conversations between educators, curators, and many of the exhibiting artists around the writings of Indigenous writer, poet, and climate activist Ailton Krenak. The artists channel Krenak, shattering the bureaucratized fictions of visas and green cards. They learn from those who came before them. They propose new fluid pathways of belonging that circumvent the trap of (dis)integration.
This a return to roots, to organs, to fossilized wisdom — a leap toward an ancestral future. This is a reminder: the seed of the future is an inner revolution.
Organizations
The Brave House is a community of support for young immigrant and refugee women and gender-expansive youth, ages 16-24, in New York City, with a focus on survivors of gender-based violence. We provide free legal aid, community events, and holistic services, including leadership training, one-on-one advocacy, mental health support, job and school assistance, support for new and expecting moms, and much more. Each year we reach 400+ immigrant youth from 35+ countries around the world.
LAZO is an online and itinerant exhibition platform that functions as a resource and archive for contemporary artists of Latin American and Caribbean descent. The website and related programming aims to create dialogue among artists working primarily in NYC and Latin American cities that reflect on histories connected to the Americas, addressing cultural and material identities through a multi-centered lens. Our intention is to offer a fluid framework to understand and engage with art that is informed by both distinct cultural heritages and increasingly global perspectives.
Biographies
Tatiana Arocha is a New York-born Colombian artist whose practice explores the intimacy between people and land, rooted in personal memory and her immigrant experience. Through public art and transdisciplinary exchange, she reconstructs the vulnerable tropical forests of her homeland, confronting the ecological and cultural loss caused by extractive economies and colonial practices. Her unconventional process weaves together historical and contemporary technologies. Arocha was recently awarded a NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Printmaking/Drawing/Book Arts and an NYSCA Artist Grant, and was a MacDowell Fellow in 2023. In 2024 she received the Award for Excellence in Design from the Public Design Commission of the City of New York, and in 2026 she was named Artist-in-Residence at the Center for Book Arts. Her permanent public commissions in New York City include Selva Adentro (MTA Arts and Design) and The Hawk and The Heron (NYC Percent for Art Program).
Cynthia Chen is a New York City–based artist and educator who works primarily in sculpture and installation. She creates recognizable yet unidentifiable forms that evoke gestures and feelings inside the body. Chen’s sculptures draw analogies between structures of the body and architecture. As an educator, Chen guides students to work iteratively, encouraging them to experiment, build upon discoveries, and explore new perspectives, much like her own process of reimagining familiar objects through play. Chen holds an MFA from Hunter College and a BFA in sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design. Chen was a fellow in the Bronx Museum AIM Program and the Yale Norfolk Summer Residency. She has exhibited solo at Olympia gallery and numerous group exhibitions including the AIM Biennial at the Bronx Museum, Kate Werble Gallery, Longwood Art Gallery, Tappeto Volante Gallery, Assembly Room, and Westbeth Gallery.
Yaching Cheung is a multidisciplinary artist working across drawing, printmaking, installation, photography, video, and movement-based performance. Her practice moves between image-making and embodied forms of storytelling, drawing on an interest in the ways images, bodies, and spaces can carry experiences across different cultural and geographic contexts. Cheung received her MFA from Hunter College, CUNY, and her BFA from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, with additional studies at HfG Offenbach am Main in Germany. Her work has been presented at HERE Arts in New York, Thinking of a Place in Frankfurt am Main, Basis Projektraum, Offenbach Kunst Ansichten, and The Bunker in Beijing. She has also developed performances informed by her training in Butoh dance and works across photography, video, and projection as a visual storyteller. She is based between New York and Berlin.
Claudia Kaatziza Cortínez is an Argentine-American artist based in New York, working across photography, printmaking, and sculpture. She received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and her MFA from Yale University. Her work develops through sustained engagement with architecture, land, and urban space connected to personal and collective histories. She is interested in how images can be constructed through physical contact with a site, grounded in material experimentation. Her work has been supported by fellowships and residencies including the Yale Norfolk Teaching Fellowship, Silver Art Projects, the Rema Hort Mann Foundation, the Center for Book Arts, and LES Printshop, Manhattan Graphic Center at Powerhouse Arts, among others. Recent projects include Salt and Bone at Furnace: Art on Paper Archive, Shifting Matter at NYCxDESIGN, and The Argentine International at The Slip.
Mauricio Cortes Ortega is a Mexican American artist and educator based in New York. Working across painting, printmaking, and sculpture, he reimagines the still-life genre to explore cultural memory, systems of value, and the histories embedded in everyday objects. Drawing from Latin American colonial history, children's narratives, and museum collections, his work examines how objects carry meaning across time and place. Cortes Ortega received a BFA from The Cooper Union and an MFA from Yale University. He was a fellow in the Bronx Museum’s Artist in the Marketplace (AIM) program and received the Schell Center for International Human Rights Travel Fellowship from Yale Law School. His work has been exhibited at the Long Island Museum, The Clemente, and the Bronx Museum. He is Chair of Visual Arts at Berkeley Carroll School in Brooklyn. Recent residencies include La Trampa Gráfica, Casa Lo’ol, and Interlude. He is a recipient of the 2025–2026 ArtBridge Public Art Commission for the Battery Park City Authority.
Marco DaSilva is an artist whose symbol-based works explore hybridity through the intersections of painting and craft. His work examines camouflage and syncretism, combining symbols from American culture, Catholic saints, Afro-Brazilian deities and queer histories into hybrid works that examine objects as relics. His graphic style of assemblage fuses glass, objects and mortar to create his own mythology. DaSilva has exhibited at FIERMAN, The Latinx Project at NYU, Beverly’s at Untitled Art Fair (Miami, FL) and Feria Material (CDMX, Mexico), with solo exhibitions at the Bureau of General Services – Queer Division and Abrons Arts Center. He was an artist-in-residence at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Art Center Residency (Governors Island, NY), a fellow for Queer|Art|Mentorship (New York, NY) and is currently a Garden Project Fellow for Ankhlave Arts Alliance. He holds a BFA from SUNY New Paltz and an MFA from CUNY Hunter College.
Nicholas D’Ornellas is a Guyanese-born artist and educator based in Jersey City, NJ. He is an MFA candidate in Painting/Printmaking at the Yale School of Art and holds a BFA from The Cooper Union. His work uses printmaking to create handwoven screen-printed textiles exploring domestic immigrant narratives. It reflects his interest in craft’s functionality and his family’s flight from racial and classist violence in Guyana. His weaving is both rehearsal and transformation of memory. D’Ornellas has exhibited at the Montclair Art Museum and Kathryn Markel Fine Art and been an artist in residence at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. He is a recipient of the EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop Kahn|Mason SIP Fellowship and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship. He taught printmaking at 92NY Art Center and served as Printmaking Area Manager at Hunter College.
fields harrington is an artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He works across disciplines and media to investigate the social and political dimensions of race, value, and the complex history of science. fields has a BFA from the University of North Texas, a MFA from the University of Pennsylvania, and studied at San Antonio Community College. He was a participant in the Whitney Independent Study Program. He has presented solo exhibitions at David Salkin Gallery, KAJE, and Y2K Group. He has exhibited in group shows at MIT List Projects, Parsons School of Design, 52-07 Flushing Avenue, and Automat Gallery. fields harrington was a L.A.B. researcher in residence at The Kitchen in collaboration with The School for Poetic Computation and participated in the research residency Site to be Seen at RAIR. He has taught at Wagner College, Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at The New School, Parsons School of Design, and The Cooper Union.
Frankie Tejada Lizardo is a multidisciplinary cuír artist focusing on themes of displacement, decolonization, gender expression, memories, heritage and traditions. Born in Moca, Dominican Republic in 2001, Frankie received their Bachelor of Fine Arts in sculpture, at CUNY Hunter College. Frankie has been recognized by the Dominican Day Parade in New York City. Some of Frankie's most recent exhibitions took place at theBLANC Gallery, Leubsdorf Gallery, Powerhouse Arts and Mapspace. Through the use of various mediums traditional to the Dominican Republic like textile tapestries, and ceramic work, Frankie Tejada Lizardo creates artwork connected to them by exploring themes of displacement, decolonization, gender expression, memories, heritage and traditions. Through the use of unconventional materials and techniques, they establish connections and critiques of institutions within the realms of politics, religion, imperialism, patriarchy and its reflection on Dominican culture through transphobia, queerphobia, misogyny, xenophobia and racism. Currently exploring Taino roots, Dominican folklore, like the Carnival, along with the myths and legends of the popular folk stories through a trans queer lens. With this, Frankie seeks to preserve aspects of these ancestral cultural traditions while also bringing visibility to trans and queer issues in Caribbean culture.
Alva Mooses holds a BFA from The Cooper Union and an MFA from Yale University. Recent exhibitions include Medida del Mar at Salón Silicón, Groundwork at Dreamsong, (Be)longing at TSA New York, Space Coiled Like A Serpent at LES Print Shop, You Enter Dancing/ There’s Always Sign at The Clemente Center. She has completed fellowships and residencies at the Lower East Side Printshop, Socrates Sculpture Park, Center for Book Arts, Greenwich House Pottery, The University of Chicago, Tou Trykk in Norway, and Casa Wabi and SOMA in Mexico, among others. Her recent projects received support from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the Research Foundation of CUNY. Alva lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Rodrigo Moreira is a Brazilian multidisciplinary artist based in NYC working on printmaking, video, installation, web, and text. His projects are related to personal narratives, systems of communication, and how images and text can evoke and subvert certain ideologies. By collecting stories, he works on ways to link the original message to systems of power and control shaping behavior and subjectivity. He holds a BA in Communication Studies and a BA in Graphic Design with complementary studies in Fine Arts. Moreira is part of LAZO, an artist collective that creates participatory projects bringing together Latinx artists across the Americas. Moreira was an artist in residence at the Center for Book Arts in NY in 2022. 2019 fellow of the AIM Program of The Bronx Museum, 2018 fellow of NYFA Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program: Social Practice, and 2016-17 fellow of the QUEER|ART’s Mentorship project in NYC. His work has been featured in selected exhibitions in Brazil, Cuba, Croatia, Portugal, Spain, and the USA, such as Bronx Calling: The Fifth AIM Biennial and FOUND: Queer Archaeology; Queer Abstraction at the Leslie-Lohman Museum. In 2015, he was awarded the 66th Salão de Abril Prize in Brazil.
Mari Nagem is a multidisciplinary artist conceptually driven by the relationship between nature and technology. She has received numerous international fellowships, commissions, and awards, including the S+T+Arts Buen-TEK Residency, a public commission for COP30 by the Tomie Ohtake Institute at the Emílio Goeldi Museum, commissions from Mostra 3M and SFER IK Museion, the Celia and Wally Gilbert Fellowship, the NYFA Immigrant Artist Program, the Ox-Bow Fellowship, and the Marcantonio Vilaça Prize. She has also been nominated for the Ars Electronica S+T+Arts Prize, the CIFO-Ars Electronica Award, and the Pipa Prize. Her work has been exhibited at institutions including the Tomie Ohtake Institute, SESC, Oi Futuro, MAC Niterói, the Museum of Image and Sound, Sea Foundation, and New York Live Arts, and featured in festivals such as FILE, Die Digitale Düsseldorf, and the Athens Digital Arts Festival. She holds an MFA from HEAD–Genève and lives between New York and Brazil.
Eiko Nishida is a Hiroshima‑born, U.S.-based Japanese artist who produces site‑specific installations using a wide range of materials, often inviting audiences to immerse themselves in shared moments. Her themes—language, perspective, and being present—shape how viewers reinterpret their surroundings. Her latest monoprint series Between Hours is the result of Nishida’s continued exploration of printmaking and its capacity to capture fleeting shifts in time and perception. Her work has been presented internationally, including Strawberry Creek Park (2025, Berkeley, U.S.A.), Pil Seung Sa (2024, Seoul, South Korea), KIOSK (2023, Glasgow, Scotland), Atamian Hovsepian Curatorial Practice (2023, New York, U.S.A.), Gallery G (2019, Hiroshima, Japan), and the Singapore Art Book Fair (2014, Singapore). She was selected for The Six Foot Platform (2025, Dumbo, NY) and completed the SOMA Summer residency (2025, Mexico City, Mexico). Her projects have been featured in The Berkeley Times (2025), The North American Post (2024), Hyperallergic (2023), and many others.
Gabriela Salazar was born in New York City to architects from Puerto Rico. She has had solo exhibitions at NURTUREart, The Lighthouse Works, Efrain Lopez Gallery, The River Valley Arts Collective, and with the Climate Museum in Washington Square Park, NYC. Her work has been included in group shows at Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens Museum, El Museo del Barrio, The Drawing Center, David Nolan Gallery, Candice Madey Gallery, GAVLAK Gallery, Storm King Art Center, NYU Gallatin Wetlab, and at the Whitney Museum. Salazar’s work has also appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, hyperallergic, BOMB, and The Brooklyn Rail. Residencies include Workspace (LMCC); Yaddo, MacDowell, Skowhegan, and “Open Sessions” at The Drawing Center. Currently, Salazar is an LMCC Artist Resident on Governors Island. In 2023 she was named a NYFA/NYSCA Fellow in Craft/Sculpture. Salazar holds an MFA from RISD, a BA from Yale University. She lives, works, and teaches in NYC.
Sok Song is a Korean-born interdisciplinary artist working across printmaking, textiles, ceramics, sculpture, and installation. Drawing from his experience as an immigrant raised between Korea and the United States, his work explores migration, memory, and cultural inheritance through processes of transfer, folding, sewing, and repair. Garments, military uniforms, and domestic textiles become material archives that carry traces of labor, identity, and belonging. Song received his MFA from Yale School of Art. He has participated in residencies and fellowships at Brandywine Workshop and Archives, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Penland School of Craft, the Center for Book Arts, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), the Vermont Studio Center (VSC), and the Henry Moore Foundation.
Catalina Tuca is a Chilean multidisciplinary Visual Artist and educator, working in the intersections of geographic identities, collective memories, and hybrid systems of collaboration and participation. After earning a BFA and a degree in Visual Arts Education, she developed her career in Santiago, exhibiting her work in solo and group exhibitions, teaching Visual Arts and Film, and creating and directing art spaces, including Oficina Barroca Gallery and CANCHA Santiago Residency Program. She participated in art residencies at Youkobo Art Space, Japan; Taller 7, Colombia; and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, USA. In 2016 she moved to the US to pursue an MFA at Rutgers University, from where she graduated in 2018. After that, she was a member of NEW INC (The New Museum Incubator Program), NY; a resident at NARS Foundation, NY; a fellow at The Interdisciplinary Art and Theory Program, NY; a resident at Collider Art Residency, Contemporary Calgary, CA; and a fellow at the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, NY. She participated in solo and group exhibitions in the USA and abroad, with the most recent “Body Omens” at TSA, NY. She is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute, NY, and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Pedro Wainer is an Argentinian Mexican artist who focuses his individual practice within cinema and photography from an object-oriented perspective, putting at the forefront the materiality of select apparatuses and technologies. He transforms outdated instruments into new devices that generate images that extend beyond the machine’s designated purpose. He is interested in analog processes not only as a physical/chemical phenomenon, but also as an exploration of the history of the mechanisms that make these techniques possible.
Farangiz Yusupova is a painter born in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She earned a BFA from the Fashion Institute of Technology and an MFA from Hunter College. Her work has been exhibited in numerous group exhibitions, including at 81 Leonard Gallery, 205 Hudson Gallery, FIT Art and Design Gallery, New York Live Arts, ChaShaMa, and Bootshaus in Berlin. In the summer of 2025, she presented a solo exhibition at John St Gallery in DUMBO, Brooklyn. Her work was also featured in Critics Chronicle and Impulse Magazine. Yusupova participated in the 2022 NYFA Immigrant Artist Mentorship Program and was an artist-in-residence at the LINE Residency in Austin, Texas, in 2023.