Dome Cartographies

This project expands a multi-year storytelling textile project called, Our Stories of Migration. It is aimed at creating impactful spaces that amplify, reflect on, and make tangible the intergenerational stories of immigrant, migrant, Latine/x, Asian, and multi-racial New Yorkers. Holding ideas of dislocation, relocation, adaptation, and touching directly on the prompt: How might we navigate the delicate balance between cultural preservation (and by extension ecological, land-based knowledge) and community needs to create a more resilient future? Nakazawa has been evolving and iterating this socially engaged project since 2017 when executive order 13769 (named “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry to the United States”) was issued, banning travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries and suspending Syrian refugee resettlement.

For this important chapter of the project, the artist draws inspiration from the Puerto Rican activist organization https://www.latinxproject.nyu.edu/intervenxions/charas-and-the-reimagination-of-loisaidaCHARAS, who, in collaboration with architect R. Buckminster Fuller, built two geodesic domes from September 1972 to January 1973 as alternative models for housing, culture, and environmental sustainability. 

For the fellowship, Natalia will develop and construct two mobile, living archives that will feature oral histories, scanned personal objects that represent complex journeys, and hand-embroidered community maps.

Learn more and download the AR app https://www.natalianakazawa.com/our-stories-of-migrationhere.