Artist Envisions ‘Liquid Frontier’ Faced by Migrants in Site-Specific Work at Miller Theatre

A mural has once again transformed the lobby of the University’s Miller Theatre. On its walls Dominican-born, Brooklyn-based Scherezade Garcia has created vivid panels that flow through the space like water. In Transit/Liquid Highway explores migrants’ willingness to face what Garcia calls the “liquid frontier,” the dangerous and unknown sea that stands between them and a new life.

For the third year in a row, Melissa Smey, executive director of Miller, and Deborah Cullen, director and chief curator of the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, have commissioned an artist to produce a site-specific work in the lobby that will remain on view until June.

“You would think that the confines of this lobby space would be limited and fixed, but each year artists surprise us anew with their creativity and expansiveness of vision,” said Smey. \"Our collaboration with the Wallach is a natural extension of what we do here. Each season, we have a number of composers whom we commission to create new musical pieces. It’s been wonderful to do the same with visual artists.”

Garcia believes her work has found a natural home in the theater lobby because it’s so dramatic. She has been exploring Dominican immigration to New York through her art ever since she arrived here from the Dominican Republic in 1986.

\"The land we inhabit is surrounded by water,\" said Garcia. \"My mural uses paint, hand drawing, affixed pieces of plastic and silkscreened images of water, which allude to the route that migrants from all over the world must take to reach another land of opportunity.”

En Español

—By Eve Glasberg

—Videos by Columbia News Video Team

October 14, 2015