Arrivals call forth origin stories. How did we get here? Where did we come from? Americans have remarkably varied stories to share, having come to call this country home in so many different ways: by conquest, displacement, colonialism, the slave trade, voluntary migration, and more. This exhibition focuses on a select series of arrival moments—Columbus, the Middle Passage, the Pilgrims, Ellis Island, the southern border today, among others—in order to look at how artists over time have explored some of the myths and narratives around what it means to be American.
