Artist and curator Eliana Miranda's 'Dejar Atras' explores the repercussions of ecological disasters on climate migrants in the Central American region Corridor Seco or Dry Corridor.When the founders of Dallas-based Nuestra Artist Collective — Karla García, Tina Medina and Eliana Miranda — came together a year ago, they started brainstorming about their first exhibition over late-night coffee chats.
The co-founder said “Fronteriza” is also a way to talk about the physical space of the border and its occupants through diverse perspectives of the eight Mexican-American visual artists who are featured in the exhibition. “It’s because for me, children are the symbol of the future,” she said. “So when we’re thinking about these environmental disasters, it kind of makes you question whether we have a future.”Karla García uses soil and cactus to reconstruct a desert landscape in "Vida." Her work is a commentary on home and belonging along the U.S.-Mexico border.
In the same way that García picked up the discarded cactus from her front yard and watched it grow, she said its journey reflects the life of immigrants as they find ways to survive in a new country while displaced from home.Medina said much of her work is about feeling disconnected with her Mexican heritage and “trying to reconnect all those broken roots.”
Her piece “Ancestra” is “about the idea of ancestors and what they’ve had to go through throughout history.”