Portals seeks a way to embody the pleasure of journey while simultaneously acknowledging the relentlessness of migration. I have travelled consistently throughout my life and am a great wanderer wherever I am, enjoying the immersive sensuality of movement and exploration. Yet the last few years have brought a different kind of movement in my life, moving home from Miami Beach to San Francisco to Melbourne. I am surprised by how disorienting it can be, despite having all the advantages of visas and good fortune, and so my attention turns, naturally, to the nearly one hundred million displaced people in the world. These two extremes may share very little, but I wonder if there is anything that each group has to offer the other. Further, as the great-granddaughter of a man whose family was among the brave who fled persecution in Russia and headed for New York, I wonder if my wanderlust will be matched by the great- grandchildren of today’s successfully resettled refugees. If moving both from, towards and possibly into escape, will call them. I wonder if there is a poetry that can address the larger questions of belonging to place. These questions are completely unresolved but instrumental to my interest in this project.
