CYCLE 1
■ the land we carry: Meditations on Spirituality, Homeland, and Queerness
S/S 2025
click on an artist to learn more
C.RYU
C.RYU
HAVEN LUYA
HAVEN LUYA
LONG NGUYEN
LONG NGUYEN
SEH-REUM TOM
SEH-REUM TOM
the land we carry, a one-day performance art festival on July 26, 2025, at El Salon in San Ysidro, in partnership with Casa Familiar. The festival highlighted works by four fellows—C. Ryu, haven luya, Long Nguyễn, and seh-reum—developed over five months of research, mentorship, and community-building.
The fellowship and festival created new pathways for representation, healing, and experimentation within the San Diego arts ecosystem, while fostering solidarity across diasporic, queer, and immigrant communities.
REMEMBRANCE
Shot and edited by Terry Smith
HAMSA FAE
■ artist - curator - fellowship director
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what is the body but not the land we live on. the land our lineage hails from and the land we continue to regenerate. the degrees of ancestry prong in threes. past, present, and future braided.
start with blood, red like thread. eight generations of kin stored in the skin. memory bubbles in each atom, compacting heat to the surface. sweating in technicolor. oh, put on a mask for this job and that person. it’s too bright. dim it, make it digestible. take it off in front of someone you love. the beaming is not lost. divinity does not fade, it is something remembered.
second: where we are born, geography grids our biology to become. birthplace is another word for stewardship. strip the fluorescent lights and underneath the hospital is indigenous territory. It means to protect the people who actively restore it, and awaken to the possibility of tilling colonial soil. one who dances in front of the white cross for transcendence, not obedience.
lastly our cosmic DNA, where we cannot see but can feel light years away. we are humans grasping for the interconnectedness of being, between all species. underwater creatures echo ripples of warning. what if we drank water from every source on this planet. would we appreciate how it comes out of our faucets. how we could fight the blocked rivers, ones monopolized. if nothing today, offer water. an offering to all lived lives.
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