Highlighting the causes, consequences, and experiences of migration both sought at forced, 21c Museum Hotel Durham is proud to present Refuge: Needing, Seeking, Creating Shelter, featuring 80 works by over 40 artists from all around the world.

By combining realism and fantasy — the mythical and the mundane — in images and objects narrating a range of migration stories that highlight our shared vulnerability, the artists in the exhibition employ a wide range of techniques and materials to present works that are both timely and timeless, poignant and portentous.

Please join us in celebrating the exhibition’s opening with a free, public reception featuring introductory remarks from 21c’s Chief Curator + Museum Director, Alice Gray Stites, and a presentation from visiting artist Arleene Correa Valencia. Cash bar and light bites available from Counting House. Guests are politely encouraged to RSVP on Eventbrite. 

“As the global refugee and climate crises persist, ensuring universal access to refuge will require seismic changes, changes potentially brought about by the accumulation of the subtle yet potent shifts in perspective that art can engender. In the U.S., we often claim to be a nation of immigrants, and yet our historical narrative is one of displacement, and the current discourse is highly contentious: the range of collective and individual experiences reflected in Refuge illuminates the possibility of a more humane and inclusive approach to immigration.” — Alice Gray Stites, 21c Museum Hotel Chief Curator

> RSVP ON EVENTBRITE 

ABOUT ARLEENE CORREA VALENCIA

Arleene Correa Valencia (b. 1993, Michoacán, Mexico; lives in Napa, California) is an inaugural recipient of the Bay Area Fellowship at Headlands Center for the Arts and received a regional Emmy award for her feature REPRESENT: Portraits of Napa Workers: Arleene Correa Valencia by KQED Arts. In 2023, Correa Valencia was also named a Eureka Fellow by the Fleishhacker Foundation. Correa Valencia has had solo exhibitions at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, the Trout Museum of Art in Appleton, Wisconsin, and the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla in Mexico. Group exhibitions featuring Correa Valencia’s work have included the Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, Oregon; San Francisco Arts Commission, California; Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York; Alfred University, New York; and Berkeley Art Center, California.Correa Valencia’s work has been collected by the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, Kansas; Grand Valley State University Art Gallery, Michigan; Ulrich Museum of Art at Wichita State University, Kansas; and 21c Museum Hotels, Louisville, Kentucky. Correa Valencia received her BFA and MFA from California College of the Arts. One of four children originally from Arteaga, Michoacán, Mexico, Correa Valencia is a beneficiary of DACA (Deferred Action Childhood Arrivals) and is on a path to becoming a naturalized citizen of the United States. The Correa Valencia family fled to the United States in 1997 and found home in California’s Napa Valley. Correa Valencia has been represented by Catharine Clark Gallery since 2022.