Newcomer

2021—TODAY

Migration: A trait shared by all peoples, across continents and throughout history. It reminds us that humanity, time and time again, returns to a nomadic nature driven by the sheer need to live, or survive. When life can no longer be sustained where one stands, one must move on. Refugees, gastarbeiters, OFWs, dekasseguis, balseros, and retirantes. Between the concrete and the ethereal, fear and hope, anxiety and joy, hostility and belonging, memory and wonder, the migrant is someone fragmented by the experience of finding their place and self. In the new land, countless fragments converge, merging into a mosaic of disparate pieces – which perhaps raises the question: after all, who are we, Canadians?