Sanctuary/Santuario Art Exhibit Reception

The U of A community and the Northwest Arkansas community at large are warmly invited to attend the reception for Sanctuary/Santuario, a juried art exhibit composed of works by Latine/x artists based in Northwest Arkansas. Join us for a reception this Thursday, Sept. 26, from 6 - 8 p.m. in the Faulkner Performing Arts Center. RSVP on Hogsync.

Light appetizers from Carmelita's Catering Co. will be served, and there will be performances from musical guests. Cheanie Noai will open at 6:45 p.m., before Carolina "Voice of the Mountain" Mendoza takes the stage for an hour of songs blending Ozark folk tradition and her Mexican roots. 

Organized by the School of Art and the Multicultural Center in recognition of Latine/Hispanic Heritage Month, Sanctuary/Santuario features artists representing the heritage countries and motherlands of Brazil, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, the Kaqchiquel Maya people, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru and Venezuela. It will be on exhibit in the gallery wings of the Faulkner Performing Arts Center until Friday, Oct. 18. 

Please contact Elsie Mejia (ejmejia@uark.edu), Sophia Ordaz (saordaz@uark.edu) and Audrey Vega (amvega@uark.edu) with any inquiries. Continue reading to learn more about Sanctuary/Santuario. 

More about Sanctuary/Santuario 

The Sanctuary/Santuario exhibit invites visitors to ask: What circumstances and possibilities must be present for a place to transform into a home and for a region to blossom into a community? What circumstances and possibilities must be present for our homes and communities to transform into sites of sanctuary? 

Since the 1990s, multiple generations of the Latin American diaspora have set down roots in Arkansas that extend deeper and deeper. The works in Sanctuary/Santuario illustrate that for Latin Americans and Latines residing in Arkansas, the conception of home and the conception of sanctuary are complex, prismatic and generative matters. 

Visitors experiencing the imaginative world of Sanctuary/Santuario may be reminded of the etymology of the word "sanctuary," which comes from the Latin sanctuarium, meaning "a place for keeping sacred things, a shrine." They may also recall the political sanctuary movements of the 1980s and the present day, which developed grassroots networks of shelter and aid to protect undocumented immigrants from deportation. In work encompassing painting, drawing, sculpture, photography and music, the artists featured in Sanctuary/Santuario prompt visitors to explore the physical, emotional and spiritual states of inhabiting a sanctuary—and to consider the factors that facilitate or prevent physical, emotional and spiritual sites of sanctuary.