Spaces of Relation: Making Place in Motion
Curated by Shaarbek Amankul (Kyrgyz) and Heidi K. Brandow (Diné/Kānaka Maoli)
Spaces of Relation: Making Place in Motion brings together artists, scholars, and culture bearers from Indigenous communities across North America, Central Asia, and Asia to explore how place, knowledge, and community are shaped through movement, relationship, and shared experience.
Transforming the gallery into a living environment for gathering, exchange, and reflection, the exhibition features art, research, sound, video, textiles, and objects that reflect the ongoing processes through which culture and memory are carried, shared, and renewed. Visitors are invited to move beyond the role of observer and enter a space that encourages listening, conversation, participation, and collective presence.
Inspired by the artist-led work of Shaarbek Amankul’s Nomadic Exchange, the exhibition highlights the connections that emerge when people come together across geographic, cultural, and disciplinary boundaries. Through shared acts of making, storytelling, hospitality, and care, Spaces of Relation considers how temporary homes are created, how knowledge travels through relationships, and how communities sustain themselves through exchange.
Featuring works and contributions by Shaarbek Amankul,Heidi K. Brandow, Mary Deleary, Brian Fleetwood, Dakota Mace, Clementine Bordeaux, and Nuttaphol Sinthavatorn, the exhibition offers an alternative model for understanding both art and community—one grounded in reciprocity, cultural continuity, and the belief that place is continually made through our relationships with one another.
Spaces of Relation invites visitors to slow down, gather, and consider how movement, memory, and connection shape the worlds we inhabit together.
Currently on view until 24 August 2026
Location: IAIA Balzer Gallery, 83 Avan Nu Po, Rd., Santa Fe, NM USA 87508
Hours of Operation: Tues-Thurs, 10am - 3pm MT
Questions?: info(at)bishkekart.org
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