Tierras Reimaginadas: Migration

This exhibition begins with a question: What if we grew up learning that migration was part of the natural order of our world? Rather than assuming animals, plants, and people belong to fixed regions, what if we understood instead that movement across borders, ecosystems, and cultures is necessary for survival and resilience?

Tierras Reimaginadas: Migration” invites audiences to reimagine migration as a life-giving force rooted in ritual, ecology, kinship and creative endurance. Inspired by the groundbreaking ideas in Sonia Shah’s ““Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move” this exhibition positions movement not as a crisis, but as the natural, historical and essential rhythm of all life.

Drawn from the museum’s permanent collection, with loans from the Art Bridges Foundation and the Gochman Family Collection, “Tierras Reimaginadas: Migration” explores migration across time and space, from the movement of people and economies to the migrations of flora, fauna, and ideas. 

Organized into five sections, the exhibition highlights forced migration, diaspora, trade, cultural identity, hybridity, and natural ecosystems, reframing movement as a generative process that has always shaped human and ecological histories. As the second of three permanent collection exhibitions, it recontextualizes the museum’s holdings to expand narratives of migration and resilience, offering fresh perspectives on how movement continues to shape and sustain life. 

“Tierras Reimaginadas: Migration” is organized by ASU Art Museum Senior Curator Alana Hernandez, with ASU Art Museum Curator Brittany Corrales, ASU Art Museum Windgate Curatorial Fellow Sade Moore, and ASU Art Museum Latinx Curatorial Fellow Natalie Solis and made possible by generous funding from the Terra Foundation for American Art. Additional funding provided by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Windgate Charitable Foundation and the Evelyn Smith Exhibition Fund. The exhibition is presented in collaboration with a Community of Practice composed of Ileana Salinas, Cultiva Program Manager at Aliento; Giselle Valadez Godinez, Program & Development Coordinator at Phoenix Legal Action Network (PLAN); Almalía Berríos-Payton, BS in Anthropology and Strategic Communications, Descended from Lenca and Pipil of El Salvador.