In this GRAM-organized exhibition, Christopher Myers commemorates heroic stories of human migration through his monumental textiles and sculptures.

About the exhibition
Myers’s works acknowledge the mythic proportion of individual migration stories and remind us of the significant risk and ambition of people who journey far from home in the hope of a better future. The exhibition will include new and never-before-seen work by the Brooklyn-based artist, including a series of new textiles inspired by Myers’s conversations with seasonal farmworkers here in West Michigan.

With support from local advocacy group, Migrant Legal Aid, Myers visited migrant housing sites throughout Kent and Ottawa counties to meet and record the stories of seasonal farmworkers. The 50,000+ migrant farmworkers in Michigan play a critical role in the state’s agricultural production, yet their stories largely remain untold. In these new works, Myers uses the myth of Persephone, the Greek goddess of agriculture, as a framework for sharing these experiences. Persephone’s journey to the underworld and return to the surface symbolized the changing of the seasons and cycle of growth and harvest, an apt metaphor for migrant workers whose travels mirror the seasons.

Location: Level 2 Changing Exhibition Galleries

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