Given Ground:

“Stand strong with your bare feet on the ground and everything that is born from it.” 
María Sabina

Whether by air, water, or earth, humans and animals alike have used migration as a tool essential to their survival. One of the most famous natural migrations known to people is that of Danaus plexippus, more commonly known as the Monarch butterfly. The vibrant vertebrae make their way from cold to warm weather regions to wait out the winter and back again to complete the multigenerational relay. Every year, Arctic terns (Sterna paradisaea) set off on a journey from the Arctic circle to the Antarctic circle and back again, covering nearly twenty-thousand miles. Across the entire animal world, long and often dangerous passages are made to ensure the safety and prosperity of those yet to exist.
Given Ground forms a visual narrative between artists whose work explores their relationship to land and placemaking; one’s own part and movement throughtout a country so deeply defined by its borders and the people whose jobs it is to keep people from crossing them. Using clay, herbs, soil, words, the artists’ work contemplates the modes in which we survive following uprooting, whether voluntary or forced. Our physical location shapes our own identity and how we relate to the world just as our history is informed by our ancestors’ movement beyond borders. Throug air, water, and earth– long enough to ensure we would someday land too. 
This exhibition was curated by Patricia Bordallo Dibildox, a Mexican-born immigrant living and working in Kansas City, Missouri; stolen ancestral land stewarded by the people of Wazhazhe Maⁿzhaⁿ (Osage), Jíwerve icc’é (Oto), Káⁿza (Kansa), Ñút’achi icc’é (Missouri), Washtáge Moⁿzháⁿ (Kaw/Kansa), and Očeti Šakówiŋ (Sioux) nations.