Captives and Nomads: Creating Space in East and West

Captives and Nomads highlights communities in the East and West that largely remain out of the public eye, either by choice or by force. The exhibition presents artwork and photography created by Soviet Bloc artists who were detained in prisons, gulags, and mental institutions, as well as artwork and photography by Soviet hippies and Soviet and East European Roma and Sinti communities. These works will be presented alongside artwork and photography by artists in American and West-European prisons and migration detention centers, and by the unhoused population in Los Angeles.

The exhibition celebrates the creativity, agency, and resiliency among people living outside the mainstream of society under different ideological regimes, sharing their own stories, and creating their own space with powerful artwork.