Kim Garcia: a trace is not a map to you, embarks on an ambitious process of worldbuilding, deconstructing and reconstructing familial histories, artifacts, and archives through sculpture, inviting a spatial encounter with the past. Moving between small, intimate objects and large-scale sculptural works, Garcia creates liminal environments and ethereal vignettes that invite viewers to consider the “American dream” as a place shaped by layered arrivals and unfinished histories. Drawing from the mythical storytelling of traditional friezes, Garcia moves from family lore to geopolitical histories, assembling personal and collective memories into dreamily hued resin friezes, ornaments, and architecturally scaled sculptures.

At the heart of the series is the artist’s personal journey of caring for her father, whose dementia has triggered a persistent longing to return “home,” a place he associates with the Philippines, despite living in San Diego for over 40 years. Searching for ways to connect with her father, Garcia began tracing her ancestral roots and encountered publications about her great-great-grandfather, a governing authority during the Spanish-American War. This discovery became a catalyst for understanding her family history within the broader context of postcolonial diaspora. This search culminated in her first adult trip to the Philippines, where she was surprised by an eerie sense of familiarity and belonging. Together, these experiences inform her exploration of memory as something that can be altered, adapted, constructed, and embodied.

Garcia materializes these encounters by etching drawings and encasing ephemera within luminous resin, a substance that both preserves and distorts. Kaleidoscopic washes of pigment, evoking the oceanic and warm tones of the islands, swirl through varying degrees of opacity, while objects—heirloom jewelry chains, family photographs, and historical clippings—remain suspended in time. Saturated fields of blue, red, green, and opalescent amber pool and cloud over the imagery, creating a tension between translucency and mystery, loss and possibility. Garcia’s monumental freestanding screens and gates extend this exploration into immersive portals, constructing liminal spaces that evoke the diasporic condition of existing between two places. Mirroring the processes of memory—conditional, fluid, hazy, personal, and participatory—a trace is not a map to you charts generational aspirations and histories through migration and desires for home, creating a space for belonging and connection.