Bearing witness to the past,
joining together for the future.

An installation by Imna Arroyo

September 12, 2009 - February 21, 2010

Hispanic Alliance exhibitions representing the artistic heritage 
                      of Latin America and the Caribbean
in collaboration with the LYMAN ALLYN ART MUSEUM

625 William Street
New London, Connecticut

(860) 443-2545

You may also contact MIGDALIA SALAS, our
Project Manager & Curatorial Assistant
email at ajiacocubanartexhibit@gmail.com

In Ancestors of the Passage, Puerto Rican painter, printmaker and sculptor Imna Arroyo presents us with a magnificent and emotion-filled installation. The piece is composed of human figures sculpted in clay depicting idealized men and women emerging from a sea of blue silk, a clear poetic depiction of the ocean that became the burial ground for so many innocent souls kidnapped from their native African lands. For centuries, they were forced to embark, against their will and amidst a terrifying uncertainty, on a journey to an unknown point of no-return, while being made protagonists of one of the most ignominious chapters in the history of humanity: slavery.

In times when there is a marked fascination for the revival of epochs or events; in times when we take a look at the past to reinvent us a present and preconceive our future, Imna Arroyo delves into history to bring forth, recover and celebrate the lives of thousands of men and women. Many of them perished in the high seas before they would experience the more certain and dramatic death associated with their sealed fate of being slaves in a hostile society that dismissed the richness of their culture and belief systems. A cruel society responsible for imposing on them a way of life that marked their existences in a much harsher way than the iron shackles would ever mark their skins.

To learn more about Imna Arroyo, visit her website at www.imnaarroyo.com