“Welcome Home: Her Liminal Asian-Appalachian Experience” is a reflection and celebration of Asian-Appalachian culture, specifically from female artists.

The exhibition, currently housed at the Slocumb Galleries as well as the Tipton Gallery, was curated by José Ardivilla and Kreneshia Whiteside. “Welcome Home” will be at the Slocumb Galleries until Feb. 25 and at the Tipton Gallery until March 19.

The “Welcome Home” Exhibit, curated by Ardivilla and Whiteside. (Photograph by Maddi Miller/East Tennessean)

“The exhibit is about women and the concept of home,” Karlota Contreras-Koterbay, director of the Slocumb Galleries said. “We wanted to focus on women because there’s always inequity in the art world.”

“Welcome Home” offers the unique perspective of these women and their experiences being Asian, biracial, refugees or women migrating in the United States, as well as their education. The exhibit includes recent works from Beizar Aradini, Leticia Bajuyo, Miyuki Akai Cook, Sonya Yong James, Meena Khalili, Marta Lee, Vy Ngo, Elena Øhlander, Sisavanh Phouthavong and Halide Salam.

  • (Photograph by Maddi Miller/East Tennessean)
  • (Photograph by Maddi Miller/East Tennessean)
The “Welcome Home” Exhibit (Photograph by Maddi Miller/East Tennessean)

“Originally it was about the liminal, that in between of belonging; of being in existence; that transience being in a threshold,” Contreras-Koterbay said. “From the liminal came the home. It really talks about migration, generational trauma, and familial narratives. Thinking of home not as a geographical location, but a psychological entity where they have a certain presence in our lives that is not always measured by longitude and latitude; being with family and friends, being accepted, belonging, those are themes that came out [in the exhibition].”

The common importance of family values in Asian and Appalachian communities helps tie together the two cultures in the exhibition. The conversations between the artists themselves help form the narrative of these two cultures mixing, reflecting their struggles of acceptance and defining what “home” truly is.

“Its important to have a remembering of the process, of the people, of the experience,” Contreras-Koterbay said.

The exhibit will have an artist panel with artists Beizar Aradini, Leticia Bajuyo, Halide Salam and Sisavanh Phouthavong, as well as anthropologist Deidre De La Cruz and curators José Ardivilla and Kreneshia Whiteside on March 3 from 6 to 8 p.m. via Zoom.

To access the virtual artist panel, visit https://etsu.zoom.us/my/slocumbgalleries or Zoom ID 710 908 4999 . The panel will also be livestreamed on Slocumb Galleries’ Facebook page.