SF/Arts Curator Insight

Trina Michelle Robinson's work often feels mysterious, as though the actual subjects or the real answers lay somewhat out of reach. Because they do. Robinson has been involved in the years-long process of unearthing her family's roots, which get muddled in time and often mired in intentional obscurity. She excavates fragments and tries to make sense of them as clues that might reveal what her ancestors were thinking, why they moved away from their homes, what they hoped to find in new places. This project spans two local institutions, one intersecting with David Ireland's personal archive project on Capp Street and the other inspiring a group of local artists to create altars to ancestors discovered and known, or still hidden in the deep soil of the past.