Join us for an afternoon of art and reflection across Brandeis University. We will begin at the Kniznick Gallery with a tour of They make a desolation and they call it peace. The exhibition brings together ten artists–Etel Adnan, Yevgeniya Baras, Nicholas D'Ornellas, Lois Harada, Pao Houa Her, Kimia Ferdowsi Kline, Jordan Nassar, Sheida Soleimani, Andrew I. Wilson, and lauren woods–whose works grow out of personal and generational experiences with war, displacement, and racial and gender-based violence. In visually and materially enticing works, they consider migration, family and cultural history, geopolitics, state violence, resistance, and care.
From there, we will walk together to the Rose Art Museum to continue the conversation through En/Lighten: Material and Metaphor and Yinka Shonibare: Sanctuary. Works by Alfredo Jaar, Christian Boltanski, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, and Mary Weatherford extend many of the questions raised at the Kniznick. Together, we’ll discuss the relationship between land and personal identity, and experiences of migration and "statelessness.” The tour will end with Shonibare’s Sanctuary City (2024), inviting us to consider the fundamental human need for safety, shelter, and the freedom to determine where and how we belong.
Image credit: Installation view, En/Lighten: Material & Metaphor, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, August 19, 2026–June 6, 2027. Julia Featheringill Photography.