Elvira Clayton: What is Freedom?

Yearning to Breathe Free | Press Release | Installation View

Join artist Elvira Clayton for an artist talk and discussion in her exhibition, Yearning to Breathe Free.

When: Monday, March 9th, 7:30-9pm
Where: Open Source Gallery, 306 17th St., Brooklyn
RSVP Requested

Yearning to Breathe Free examines displacement through materials associated with migration, survival, and instability. Using the red, white, blue, and black woven plastic bags—often referred to as “refugee bags,” “Ghana-must-go bags,” “Turkish suitcases,” and “Chinatown totes”—along with tarps, Clayton works with objects embedded in global histories of movement and vulnerability.

The exhibition title, Yearning to Breathe Free, is taken from Emma Lazarus’s poem The New Colossus, inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty—originally intended as a gesture of welcome toward immigrants:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free…”

Join Elvira Clayton at Open Source on Monday to discuss what it means to yearn for breath, safety, and belonging in a time when such promises are increasingly denied.