Remembering Humanity / Recordando a la Humanidad

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Xavier Vasquez
Email: xavier@artivist.media
Phone: 619-928-4373

Remembering Humanity / Recordando a la Humanidad
A Multimedia Thesis Exhibition Curated by X Vasquez, M.A.L.A.S. Graduate Student, SDSU
May 21–24, 2025 | The Brick Room at Bread & Salt | 1955 Julian Ave, San Diego, CA 92113
Open to the public during regular gallery hours: 11am-4pm beginning May 21, 2025
Closing Reception: Saturday, May 24, 2025 | 6:00–9:00 PM

SAN DIEGO, CA — Remembering Humanity / Recordando a la Humanidad is a multimedia thesis exhibition curated by X Vasquez, a graduate student in the Master of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences (M.A.L.A.S.) program at San Diego State University. The exhibition will take place from May 21–24, 2025, in the Brick Room at Bread & Salt in Barrio Logan.

The exhibition features the work of seven San Diego-based artists and activists whose creative practices intersect with community resistance, migration, and memory:

Spanning video, jewelry, photography, and installation, the works explore the border as both a physical and psychological space marked by crisis, resilience, and collective care.

Curator’s Statement
“I’m a multidisciplinary artist, and in September 2023 marked the beginning of my first semester in grad school at SDSU, and the beginning of 16 months of humanitarian work along the San Diego section of the US – Mexico Border. Almost immediately I was stricken by the cruel conditions that migrants and asylum seekers were subjected to by the US Government, as they were forced to stop and wait for processing at various sites along the border from San Ysidro (the most western site in the United States) to the most eastern part of San Diego in Jacumba, CA. Between these two points Border Patrol setup makeshift detentions sites, also known as Open Air Detention Sites, where thousands of asylum seekers, per day, were told to stay if they wished to be properly processed for legal entry into the US.

It was at these sites that hundreds of additional volunteers, non-profits, and non-governmental agencies from throughout San Diego County, and other points elsewhere in the United States, heeded the call to provide humanitarian aid to asylum seekers to prevent suffering and death.

I’m just one of hundreds who has a story to tell, and it is with this thesis project that I hope to communicate my thoughts and observations from this life-changing moment in United States history. It is because of our current political climate that I feel it is very important to remember what transpired on this land from September 2023 through January 2025.
Although the work has changed and continues with various independent aid groups and official non-governmental agencies providing aid along the border, I choose to highlight this period as a memorial to all who gave themselves unselfishly day after day, night after night, week and week and month after month.

With this, we remember those who came here seeking safety, a better life, and those who answered the call to provide humanitarian aid and friendship. We remember humanity.”
— X Vasquez