Sandy Rodriguez: Book 13

Sandy Rodriguez’s “Book 13,” her largest installation to date, includes a 20-foot-wide map of the United States, plant portraits, a book, and a landscape painting, all created on hand-processed amate-fiber paper. Drawing on a range of colonial Mexican sources in dialogue with 19th-century maps and boundary surveys from The Huntington’s collections, the installation brings together research on place, ecology, and regional histories.​

With “Book 13,” Rodriguez considers how histories and borders are marked, erased, and redrawn across this land. She wants visitors to feel the presence of communities who shape this region—the lived stories that unsettle official accounts, affirm resilience, and bring layered truths to the surface. ​

Rodriguez’s work sparks curiosity about how history is written and how national narratives are constructed and presented. She offers new ways of engaging with important historical collections and landscapes at The Huntington.

Rodriguez is the 2025–26 Hannah and Russel Kelly Distinguished Fellow in American Art at The Huntington. This project grew out of her research residency, with support from Creative Capital Foundation.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website