Ser De | Ni De
Los Angeles, CA (April 2026)
Dual Exhibition Felicia T Perez and Ruby Barrientos
A powerful and immersive dual exhibition by Felicia T Perez and Ruby Barrientos that explores what it means to exist in the in-between—between past and present, homeland and diaspora, illness and healing, visibility and erasure. Rooted in personal history and collective experience, the exhibition asks: What does it mean to belong when you are not fully of one place, one body, or one story?
Through sculpture, installation, photography, and participatory work, both artists transform lived experience into material form—inviting audiences not just to witness, but to engage.
Felicia T Perez’s work centers on scale, interruption, and survival. Expanding on her ongoing exploration of the body and its limits, Perez uses objects, images, and miniature forms to question what it means to take up space. A 1:84-scale version of herself exists alongside attempts to recreate her full physical presence, revealing the tension between shrinking, expanding, and being seen. Her work operates as a time capsule—responding in real time to illness, political conditions, and disrupted plans—refusing a fixed form or conclusion. What emerges is an ongoing experiment: How big is enough? How small is too small?
In contrast and conversation, Ruby Barrientos’ installation grounds the exhibition in memory, ancestry, and collective rhythm. Drawing from her experience as a queer Salvadoran American, Barrientos explores the layered realities of migration, identity, and intergenerational healing. At the center of her work are ceramic drums that function as both sculptural objects and vessels of story—some embedded with recorded family histories, others activated through touch and sound. Visitors are invited to play, listen, and contribute, transforming the space into a living, communal archive.
Barrientos’ work extends into a community altar composed of clay, sand, and straw, where audiences are encouraged to leave offerings, bridging past and present through shared acts of remembrance and care. The installation becomes a portal—one where stories are not only told, but felt, carried, and reshaped together.
Together, Perez and Barrientos create a dynamic dialogue between the individual and the collective, the body and the land, the personal and the political. Where Perez asks how we take up space, Barrientos asks how we hold space—for ourselves and for each other.
SER DE | NI DE does not offer a single answer. Instead, it invites a shared inquiry:
How do we define home?
Who gets to belong?
What does it take to be seen?
If we are not from one place, perhaps that means we get to build one—together.
Dual Exhibition Felicia T Perez and Ruby Barrientos
A powerful and immersive dual exhibition by Felicia T Perez and Ruby Barrientos that explores what it means to exist in the in-between—between past and present, homeland and diaspora, illness and healing, visibility and erasure. Rooted in personal history and collective experience, the exhibition asks: What does it mean to belong when you are not fully of one place, one body, or one story?
Through sculpture, installation, photography, and participatory work, both artists transform lived experience into material form—inviting audiences not just to witness, but to engage.
Felicia T Perez’s work centers on scale, interruption, and survival. Expanding on her ongoing exploration of the body and its limits, Perez uses objects, images, and miniature forms to question what it means to take up space. A 1:84-scale version of herself exists alongside attempts to recreate her full physical presence, revealing the tension between shrinking, expanding, and being seen. Her work operates as a time capsule—responding in real time to illness, political conditions, and disrupted plans—refusing a fixed form or conclusion. What emerges is an ongoing experiment: How big is enough? How small is too small?
In contrast and conversation, Ruby Barrientos’ installation grounds the exhibition in memory, ancestry, and collective rhythm. Drawing from her experience as a queer Salvadoran American, Barrientos explores the layered realities of migration, identity, and intergenerational healing. At the center of her work are ceramic drums that function as both sculptural objects and vessels of story—some embedded with recorded family histories, others activated through touch and sound. Visitors are invited to play, listen, and contribute, transforming the space into a living, communal archive.
Barrientos’ work extends into a community altar composed of clay, sand, and straw, where audiences are encouraged to leave offerings, bridging past and present through shared acts of remembrance and care. The installation becomes a portal—one where stories are not only told, but felt, carried, and reshaped together.
Together, Perez and Barrientos create a dynamic dialogue between the individual and the collective, the body and the land, the personal and the political. Where Perez asks how we take up space, Barrientos asks how we hold space—for ourselves and for each other.
SER DE | NI DE does not offer a single answer. Instead, it invites a shared inquiry:
How do we define home?
Who gets to belong?
What does it take to be seen?
If we are not from one place, perhaps that means we get to build one—together.
