UNA VOZ DESATADA: The Art, Writings and Trauma of an Immigrant Child

A powerful, intensely personal, posthumous exhibition of the art and memories of Rocio Alvarado Lockwood. Revealed in three moments over four decades, it confronts the themes of child immigrant trauma, in-school abuse, and the scars carried from childhood. But most of all, it is a story about voice.

From the catalog:

“What does it mean to be voiceless? What does it feel like to have no mouth, no face, no flesh on one’s bones, no power, no say in the life you are forced to lead or the words you are forced to speak?

In this world of migration, xenophobia, and disrespect for the foreigner, the experiences of an immigrant child named Rocío are certainly not unique. But what IS perhaps unique is her engagement of valiant and extreme strategies to protect her own emotional and psychological survival. Punished both at school and at home for not “cooperating” with the teachers in parroting English phrases and eliminating the Spanish words of her happy early childhood in Mexico, Rocío claims the only power she still has – the power to withhold speech, to forego voice.

These haunting drawings and journal entries are the reflection of a childhood in excruciating isolation and culture shock. It is the pain of an immigrant child who, rather than reject her ancestral language and identity, chooses to adopt selective mutism, and say nothing at all.”

Gallery Open Friday and Saturday 1-4pm or by appointment.   Closing talk with exhibit curator Dean Lockwood on October 27th, 2-4pm.