Gemidos de la Tierra

Beneath a red billboard of cropped white letters (WHO IS BEYOND, S BOUGH, HO DO, SALU), a woman on a stepladder leans into a tall white panel, a pale cloud rising at her face as she presses earth-brown letters into place. Columns of soil-cast names, too small to read, run down the panel, and a woman with a halo of dark curls watches from below beside a plywood door.
Title
Gemidos de la Tierra
Artist/Creator
Jackie Amézquita
Description
An exhibition at the Art, Design & Architecture Museum, UC Santa Barbara, of work by Los Angeles–based artist Jackie Amézquita, rooted in land-based methods and ancestral material knowledge. At its center is Gemidos de la Tierra (Wailings of the Land/Soil) (2020–ongoing), in which she hand-casts the names of people who died in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody from 2003 to the present, each name made from soil gathered in the state where the person died, combined with masa, salt and rainwater.

Amézquita is the 2026 Artist in Residence of Ecological Practice at UCSB's Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration, and her fieldwork on campus and at the Santa Cruz Island Reserve, on native ecosystems, plant pollination and soil remediation, informs a newly commissioned work for the exhibition.

Names of people who have died in recent years are to be added during a Día de Muertos activation on November 1, 2026.
Event Type
Exhibition
Date
August 26 – November 29, 2026
Location
Art, Design & Architecture Museum, UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California
Organizer
Organized by the AD&A Museum, UC Santa Barbara; curated by Ana Briz, Assistant Director and Curator of Exhibitions; residency in partnership with the Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration, UC Santa Barbara
Affiliated Organizations
UCSB Art, Design & Architecture Museum
Geographic Scope
National
Climate & Ecology Themes
Migration and Displacement
Soil and Subsurface Systems
Discipline / Field
Arts & Design
Concepts
Loss and Grief
Healing and Repair
Ecological Domain / Habitat
Urban
Audience / Engagement Type
Public / General Audience
Methods & Approaches
Field Research / Fieldwork
Rights
Rights held by artist or creator
Website
museum.ucsb.edu
Item sets
California Art & Climate Archive
UC Santa Barbara
Media
Beneath a red billboard of cropped white letters (WHO IS BEYOND, S BOUGH, HO DO, SALU), a woman on a stepladder leans into a tall white panel, a pale cloud rising at her face as she presses earth-brown letters into place. Columns of soil-cast names, too small to read, run down the panel, and a woman with a halo of dark curls watches from below beside a plywood door.Jackie Amézquita, Gemidos de la Tierra