Portal Of Healing
With Rae Sampilo
Video by Zainob+Mathew Create
Crossing one of the most remembered years in history, transitioning from 2020 to 2021, Rachel Gonzales, Filipina American artist, created the site-specific installation, “Portal of Healing” in the Fondren Library, to hold space for collective grief, despair, avoidance, and the reclamation of joy, resilience, and healing in the present moment.
In collaboration with the Houston Asian American Archive with excerpts from Asian American narratives and poetry of Wei-Huan Chen and Jenah Maravilla, Gonzales created this work from the end of 2020 to the first week of 2021, to collect and manifest the human experiences. It is an emotional landscape that serves as a bridge from one end of the gallery to another, enveloping the space for contemplation, while figuratively connecting past, present, and future through the storytelling of Asian Americans.
Portal Of Healing
Acrylic, chalk, and pencil on canvas
250 x 70 in. each part, in 4 parts
A site-specific installation by Rachel Gonzales which first opened at the Fondren Library as a solo exhibition between January 15 to April 26th, 2021.
It was again displayed at the McNay Museum with the Filipinx Artists of Houston (in which Rachel is a founding member) for McNay’s Texas Biennial from September 1, 2021 – January 31, 2022.
Created from the end of the tumultuous year of 2020 to an uncertain beginning of 2021, “Portal of Healing” is a site-specific custom piece in collaboration with the Houston Asian American Archive with excerpts from Asian American narratives and poetry of Wei-Huan Chen and Jenah Maravilla. A work to hold space for human experiences to “cross the bridge together” to 2021 (quoted from the artist’s late father), "Portal of Healing" spans across the entire space of the Information Commons. It is an emotional landscape that literally serves as a bridge from one end of the gallery to another, enveloping the space for contemplation while figuratively connecting past, present, and future through the storytelling of Asian American narratives melded with the artist’s own visual artistry.
This installation is currently on display:
Join the Houston Public Library to celebrate the opening of the exhibit "Our Vibrant AAPI Community: Selections from the Houston Asian American Archive" on display at JIB Gallery from January 19, 2023, to June 3, 2023.
This exhibit is in partnership with the Houston Asian American Archive and the Woodson Research Center of Rice University. For more information about The Houston Asian American Archive, please visit https://haaa.rice.edu/
This event is FREE and open to the public.
Press Release
Read more about it in this article in the Houston Asian American Archive.
Read about it further in this press release by Rice University’s Department of Transnational Studies.
Read the article by Sitelines Magazine “In this Texas Biennial, Texas is the protagonist” which speaks of the diverse artists addressing a host of important 21st-century human rights issues.
For a virtual walkthrough of the exhibit please visit this link.
Fondren After Dark: Embodying Healing
With Rae Sampilo
“Fondren After Dark | Embodying Healing” is a dance performance in collaboration with site-specific art installation “Portal of Healing,” at the Fondren Library, Rice University.
Credit: Choreographer and Dancer: Rea Sampilo Artistic Consultant: Rachel Gonzales Producer: Ann Shi, Associate Curator, Houston Asian American Archive Video Editor: Trisha Morales Camera and Lighting: L Diop (Rice senior, sports management) Assistant: Julia Huang (Rice senior, kinesiology) Music: “Black Swan (Orchestral Version)” by BTS (licensed via Rice University) Special thanks: Amanda Focke, Head of Special Collections, Fondren Library. Funding provided by Chao Center for Asian Studies, Rice University.
Artist Talk— Rachel Gonzales | "Portal of Healing: We Will Cross the Bridge Together"
"Portal of Healing: We Will Cross the Bridge Together" is a public artist talk in conjunction with the solo exhibition by Rachel Gonzales at the Fondren Library, Rice University
This recording and transcript form part of a collection of oral history interviews conducted by the Chao Center for Asian Studies at Rice University. This collection includes audio recordings and transcripts of interviews with Asian Americans native to or living in Houston
For more information, visit haaa.rice.edu/portal-of-healing.