SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- In this exhibition, eight artists—Ala Abtekar, Michelle Dizon, Naeem Mohaiemen, Meleko Mokgosi, Wangechi Mutu, Yamini Nayar, Ishmael Randall Weeks, and Saya Woolfalk—actively negotiate their relationships with two or more different cultures and the influence on their individual lives. Collectively, they have connections to such diverse countries as Bangladesh, Botswana, India, Iran, Japan, Kenya, Peru and the Philippines. Though all are currently based in the United States, they represent a variety of emigrant experiences—those who emigrated to the U.S. as children and those who emigrated as adults; those who are first generation citizens and those who both live and work in the U.S. and elsewhere. The work of these artists, all of whom are in their late 30s and early 40s, forms a sampling of a generation’s response to the role of cultural diversity in the U.S. Guided by their ability to move fluidly between cultures, and drawing from the uniqueness of their individual journeys, these artists reveal the ways in which their identities have been transformed by the confluence of mobility, cultural retention and personal history.

Inherent in their shared condition of straddling multiple identities is the artists’ ability to translate culture as it relates to time and space, as well as to illustrate the ever-present influence of history. Crafting entirely new identities from the confluence of mobility, cultural retention, and investigations into their pasts, they adapt their internal and social resources to the uniqueness of their individual journeys and use their fluidity of movement from one culture to another as the basis for their art-making. Their art expresses their personal identities by embracing cultural transition, material relocation, or the transmigration of things.

Ishmael Randall Weeks was born in Peru to American expatriate parents and came to the U.S. to attend college. He currently splits his time between Cuzco and New York. Randall Weeks bases his practice around the alteration of found and recycled materials and environmental debris. His installation, I-beam, a sculpted landscape carved from books glued together surrounded by photographs of unfinished building, references the “unfinished modernity” of Latin American culture.

Yamini Nayar was born in Detroit to Indian parents and often spent her summers as a child in Dehli. He large color photographs of fictional architectures stem from an abiding interest in idealized structures, lived experience and memory. Each photograph develops over time, accumulating its own narrative and retaining traces of process, erasures and construction within the flattened two-dimensional space.

Naeem Mohaiemen was born in Bangladesh and splits his time between Dhaka and Brooklyn. He creates videos that explore the after-effects of 1970s Leftist radicalism on Bangladesh and the contradictions between Bengalis’ marginal migrant status abroad and authoritarian rule in their own country.

Michelle Dizon is an artist, filmmaker, and writer of Filipino heritage who was born in Los Angeles. Her large-scale video installation, Perpetual Peace, addresses the economic collapse of the Philippines after the closure of US military bases and the resurgence of traditional, pre-military economies such as fishing and agriculture.

Meleko Mokgosi was born in Botswana and now lives and works in New York City. By applying a rigorous conceptual approach to his work, he depicts the specter of colonialism that still haunts much of Southern Africa through figurative paintings drawn from images in magazines and cinema.

Ala Ebtekar was born in Berkeley to Iranian parents and was raised in the US with frequent trips to Teheran. His large scale paintings juxtapose images of classical Persian wrestlers with those of contemporary hip-hop dancers to illustrate how the past can provide a new way to understand the present and envision the future.

Saya Woolfalk was born in Japan to a Japanese mother and a mixed-race, African American and white father. She was raised and currently lives in New York City. Her belief that the “personal is political’ is personified by her fantastical The Empathics installations that combine performance, sculpture, painting, and video to playfully re-imagine the representational systems that shape our lives.

Wangechi Mutu was born in Kenya, trained as both a sculptor and anthropologist, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn. Drawing from the aesthetics of traditional crafts, science fiction and funkadelia, her work explores the contradictions of female and cultural identity through collage sculptures and paintings that are both enticing and frightening.

Migrating Identities is curated by YBCA’s Director of Visual Arts, Betti-Sue Hertz.