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NEA's Big Read

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Eastern’s Big Read, Oct. 7–Dec. 3, 2020

Into the Beautiful North, Luis Alberto Urrea

Eastern’s Art Gallery is pleased to partner with the University’s First-Year Program to celebrate “Into the Beautiful North” by Luis Alberto Urrea, this year’s selection of the National Endowment for the Art’s Big Read program. Eastern presents the Big Read in partnership with the Willimantic Public Library, The Hispanic Alliance of Southern Connecticut, the city of New London and other community stakeholders. The Big Read program is designed to revitalize the role of literature in American culture and to encourage citizens to read for pleasure and enlightenment.

NEA Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.

El proyecto NEA Big Read es una iniciativa del National Endowment for the Arts (el Fondo Nacional para las Artes de Estados Unidos) en cooperación con Arts Midwest.

Luis Alberto Urrea
The author: Luis Alberto Urrea
Image credit: Stephen Yang
Events
Image credit: Anqi Peng
Resources
artwork
“Looking at Trump’s ‘Beautiful Wall’”
March 3, 2018; New York Times

Luis Alberto Urrea

"Who was free, and who was the prisoner? Who is the other? Americans are dreamers too. Here’s my dream: There is no them, there is only us."

artwork
questions for my body

Dante Migone Ojeda

"Whether the [body] is close to the border, whether the [body] is on a known smuggling route..." - Eduardo C. Corral, Song of the Open Road, from Guillotine, 2020

artwork
"How We Could Have Lived or Died This Way", 2018

Martín Espada

"I see the rebels marching, hands upraised before the riot squads, faces in bandannas against the tear gas, and I walk beside them unseen."

artwork
La Migración, 2018
Jacquard woven tapestry, shisha hand embroidery, metal sequins

Natalia Nakazawa

"...sees everything longing beyond our borders immobility the bloody flags..."

Photo credit: Tanya Aguiñiga, Grapple, 2018; courtesy of artist and AMBOS Project

Grapple

anya Aguiñiga about her performance Grapple "My impotent and shaky grip attempt to take ownership of this physical and emotional space. The border fence, especially this particular stretch of fence, has haunted my memories, as it was absent most of my childhood and left a marked scar on my small town of Playas de Tijuana when it was installed. The fence is a permanent reminder that we are not wanted, that we are less than, that we are what gets filtered out. It is a stigma we invisibly carry the rest of our lives, as we find our place in the world navigating the liminal."

National Endowment for the Arts Big Read Managed by Arts Midwest arts.gov/neabigread

For more information, contact Yulia Tukhonova, coordinator of the Art Gallery and Museum Services, at tikhonovay@easternct.edu or (860) 465-4625.

NEA Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.

El proyecto NEA Big Read es una iniciativa del National Endowment for the Arts (el Fondo Nacional para las Artes de Estados Unidos) en cooperación con Arts Midwest.

CT Humanities

Eastern NEA Big Read programs have been supported by CT Humanities Quick Grant.

Connecticut Humanities, a nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, supports cultural and historic organizations that tell the state’s stories, build community and enrich lives.