to return to community = balikbayan: MFA Thesis Exhibition by Gabriel Hudson

Opening Reception: Friday, February 7, 2025, 6:00-8:00 pm, Performance at 6:30 pm

Masquerade: Friday, February 14, 2025, 6:00-8:00 pm

Artist Talk: Tuesday, April 1, 2025, 4:00-6:00 pm, at George Pearl Hall, UNM School of Architecture and Planning

This exhibition is a non-traditional book about what it’s been like growing up mix-cultured in the 21st century United States and gabriel needed more than words and images to accomplish this, so they’ve dispersed their written words amongst sculptures including video, audio, and mixed media.

gabriel takes the literal cardboard boxes that enable our society to function, and the psychic, mental, metaphysical, socio-emotional, societally-constructed boxes that also shape individual people and communities, and made art from harvesting, ripping, shredding, soaking, pulping, blending, then re-sculpting these boxes.

gabriel found a sense of futuristic self-determination, present fulfillment, and a capacity to contribute to old-old efforts of social engagement by playing in the box, outside of the box, but most of all: with the box.

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Friday 7th – free exhibition, a night of masks, remixed photography, and video; bring $$ for food truck, and art with sliding scale pricing. Performance starts at. 6:30 pm.

Friday 14th – Free masquerade! Come ready for a semi-formal, fully-groovy night of dance and food to close out the show. Come with a mask (Halloween mask, health mask, or something of your own creation) and get ready to boogie. All ages, bodies, and dress welcome – come in that prom outfit that got canceled because of COVID, come in those snazzy sweats that make you feel so cozy – and enjoy a de-colonial valentines art-dance-party.

*email ghudson8@unm.edu to schedule a gallery visit or tour, classes and large groups welcomed.