Lorena Molina
At What Cost: Part II

July 28 - September 2, 2023
Opening Reception: Friday, July 28, 6-8pm
Assembly, 4411 Montrose Blvd, Suite F

Assembly is excited to present At What Cost: Part II, an immersive corn maze installation by Houston-based artist Lorena Molina. With stalks sourced from Texas farms, the maze installation will create the grounds for meditation on the immigrant experience, US imperialism, and access to safety and freedom.

Corn mazes are a common staple of agritourism, created by farmers to generate extra income and enjoyed for family fun in the fall months. There are much larger historical and political implications of this crop, however, as policies like NAFTA have forever changed corn farming in Latin America and caused an influx of immigration to the United States. Molina draws a connection between the complex, winding journey within a corn maze and the journey of immigration.

Inside a corn maze, visitors must trust their instincts for the journey as they search not only for the center, but also for a way back to the start. The sensation of being disoriented or lost in a corn maze, Molina argues, is the sensation of immigration and diaspora. The way to and from is not always certain, and sometimes families, culture, languages, and histories can be lost on the way to a promise.

The artist invites participants to use the maze as a site for meditation and contemplation of this experience, to honor the many places that people have left to be here. The center of the maze reveals the artist’s suggestion of the fragile nature of safety and freedom, asking us to consider who benefits from these ideas and who pays a high price for them.

This exhibition is made possible thanks to grants by The Idea Fund and the University of Houston. The Idea Fund is a re-granting program administered by DiverseWorks in partnership with Aurora Picture Show and Project Row Houses and funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Lorena Molina is a Salvadoran, Houston-based multidisciplinary artist, educator, and curator. She is an Assistant Professor of Photography and Digital Media in the School of Art at the University of Houston. She’s also the founder and the director of Third Space Gallery, a community space and gallery that supports and highlights BIPOC artists in Cincinnati, Ohio. 

Through the use of photography, video, performance, and installation, she explores identity, intimacy, pain, and how we witness the suffering of others. The work interrogates relationships and the formation of relationships as political acts that are guided by negotiations of power and privilege. She investigates the inequalities and challenges that oppressed groups face when constructing place and establishing a sense of belonging, informed by a deep sense of personal displacement that she experienced after a twelve-year civil war forced Molina and her family to migrate to the United States. 

Her current work looks at identity in the margins. She views the margins both as a place where extreme violence and pain happens, but also as a place for resisting, dreaming, healing, and thriving.