MILLBROOK, June 5 — The Millbrook Museum of Art officially opened its summer anchor exhibition, Roots & Routes: A Century of Coming Home, to the public Wednesday morning with a ribbon-cutting attended by Mayor Gwen Aldecoa and more than 150 guests. The exhibit, two years in the making, features work from 23 artists and community contributors and draws on interviews with more than 60 Millbrook-area families whose stories of relocation — from the American South, from Mexico and Central America, from Southeast Asia, and from rural Appalachia — form the emotional core of the show.
A Show Built From the Community Up
Curator Imani Okafor, who joined the museum's staff in 2021, described the project as the most collaborative she's undertaken in her career. "This wasn't us going out and finding art that fit a theme," she told the crowd at Wednesday's opening. "This was us sitting in people's living rooms, looking at their photographs, listening to their grandparents on voicemail recordings, and asking what they wanted the world to know." The exhibition spans three gallery rooms and includes large-format documentary photography by Millbrook-based photographer Luz Herrara, quilts and textile installations created in partnership with the Millbrook Senior Weavers Collective, and four audio listening stations where visitors can hear excerpts from oral history interviews conducted in English, Spanish, and Lao.
- Exhibition runs through August 31; free admission every Sunday
- A companion community programming series includes panel discussions on June 18 and July 16
- A printed exhibition catalog is available in the museum gift shop for $24
- The museum is located at 340 Laurel Avenue and is open Tuesday–Sunday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.
The show has already drawn attention beyond Millbrook — the state arts council highlighted it in a recent newsletter, and Okafor confirmed the museum has received inquiries from two larger institutions about a possible traveling version of the exhibit. For many attendees at Wednesday's opening, the pull was more personal. "My grandmother came here from Oaxaca in 1971," said Millbrook resident Carmen Delgado-Rios, pausing in front of a black-and-white photograph in the first gallery. "I see her face in this room. That's everything."
