Studio Channel Islands Art Center (SCIART) will present DIS CONNECTION, a program of visual and performing art in the Blackboard Gallery from April 1 to May 27. The exhibition has been Curated by SCIART Artist-in-Residence Elana Kundell, featuring the work of eight contemporary female artists who have a family history of displacement by global events. The exhibition includes paintings, installation artworks, photography and sculpture responding to the personal impact of losing one’s home and community, one of the most consequential topics of our time.
Opening reception with the artists is free to attend and will take place April 1, 4 to 7 p.m.. Exhibition programing includes an artist panel discussion at 1 p.m., Saturday April 15, a concert by Gilles Apap and Armen Guzelimian at 7.30 p.m., Saturday April 22, and a film and live art performance by Maria Adela Diaz at 7.30 p.m., Saturday April 29.
Curator Elana Kundell states, “The diverse artworks in this exhibit respond to the multi-generational trauma of destruction of home and community. The artists find poetic language for loss through the imaginative transformation of materials. Their works inspire reflection, posing the question, ‘When a sense of place and home is lost, along with the identity built around it, how do people construct a new place and sense of meaning?”
Guatemala-born artist Maria Adela Diaz invites the community to take part in the creation of ‘Lost and Found,’ a performance art anthropological inquiry into the common connection that we share with home and family. Her work has been exhibited at the Pompidou Center in Paris and at the London Design Biennale. “Everybody has a story about an object that they cherish.” Said Diaz. “An object that holds their memories of home. Objects anchor us and contribute to a sense of comfort, stability, and safety.” The community is invited to bring an object from their own home into the gallery and to add their story into the creation of this artwork.
Featured Artists
Guatemalan-born artist Maria Adela Diaz is a performance artist whose work responds to the complex human experience of migration, the vulnerability of the human body and memories which are transported across boundaries.
Artist Fatemeh Burnes, born in Iran, is an internationally renowned painter, educator and curator. Burnes’ work references events, tragedies, and cultural chasms with autobiographical elements examining her childhood in Iran, her father’s imprisonment (under both Shah and Ayatollah), her adolescence as a child bride, and her life as an immigrant.
Artist Alicia Piller's powerful sculptural forms merge the new and discarded into large scale works that mimic forms of cellular biology. She notes, “The construction of each work becomes a biological unfolding of time that examines the energy around wounds left by historical traumas.” Piller is currently exhibiting at Craft Contemporary in Los Angeles.
Janet Neuwalder is the daughter of Japanese and Austrian parents. She works in clay to create contemporary fossils that “speak to the multifaceted complexity of human existence.” For this exhibition, Neuwalder has created a poignant installation that draws upon her family’s experience of the World War II Topaz Internment Camp in Utah.
Nurit Avesar, mixed media painter, was born and raised in Israel. Her process-based images are created through the destruction and blending of multiple layers of paper, paint, rope, rust, window screen and other materials. She states, “History is not linear; it is interwoven with present and future. I have always been fascinated by the effect of history on the present, and the way current events and decisions determine the future.”
Marthe Aponte draws inspiration from her life and travels in France, Venezuela, and California, as well as her family’s experiences at Auschwitz. Her perforated wall sculptures take the form of shields, representing a symbolic protection from displacement.
Artist Sigrid Orlet is a second-generation refugee from Germany. She produces a variety of media including painting, photography, sculpture and installation concerned with unearthing the roots of humanity as an aspect of the coherent whole of existence.
Arezoo Bharthania is an Iranian-American multi-disciplinary artist based in Los Angeles whose works reflect the experience of creating a home while existing in a state of in-between. Her mixed-media, layered installation explores oppression, self-expression, memory and identity.
Curator Elana Kundell is a longtime Artist-In-Residence at Studio Channel Islands who communicates life through the language of color, in oil and mixed media painting. She is the granddaughter of a Holocaust refugee from Czechoslovakia.

There is ample free parking, admission to the Gallery is free. Visit studiochannelislands.org or call 805-383-1368 for full details.
Studio Channel Islands is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and preserving the arts in our community, providing unique and diverse artistic encounters for all ages and extraordinary opportunities for artists. Ongoing programs include open studios and arts education classes, diverse Blackboard Gallery exhibitions and performances, cultural festivals and Old Town Camarillo events. Gallery hours are Tues.–Fri., 11 a.m.–5 p.m., Sat. 11 a.m.–3 p.m. Located at 2222 E. Ventura Blvd., Camarillo, CA 93010. For more information, visit www.studiochannelislands.org, or call 805-383-1368.