Private Landscapes and Public Territories: Botanicals, Archives and Libraries in the Work of Amalia Mesa-Bains

In this exhibition, Amalia Mesa-Bains focuses on the importance of place and memory through botanical prints, mapping images, landscape shadow boxes, altars, folding books and installations. The themes of family geographies and historical displacements of Latino and native peoples are represented through border maps, archival images and native plants. The narratives of human geography help us to see that our private landscapes have always been part of larger public territories beset by histories of change, loss and memory. 

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.