GW’s Corcoran School Offers Public Hours for Exhibit on Lives of Migrants

‘Push Factors: Perspectives on Guatemalan Migration’ on display through January 2016.

November 2, 2015

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Corcoran Building will offer public hours for a photography exhibition on Guatemalan migrants.

The George Washington University announced Monday that the atrium of the historic Corcoran Building, home to the GW Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, will be open to the public three days a week for the “Push Factors: Perspectives on Guatemalan Migration” exhibition.

Public access, which began Oct. 29, will be offered from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays.

“We are pleased to offer regular public hours for this exhibition,” said Sanjit Sethi, director of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design. “This is the first of what we intend to be a series of exhibitions that will be free and open to the public.”

“Push Factors,” featuring photographs of life in Guatemala following the country’s 36-year civil war, will be on display through Jan. 23, 2016. Visitors will be welcomed at the main 17th Street entrance and will have the option to participate in a guided or self-guided tour of the exhibition.

“The atrium will carry exhibitions that specifically look at critical social issues through a creative lens and will also display updates on the progress of our multi-phase, multi-year renovation of the historic Corcoran Building,” Mr. Sethi said. “Welcoming the community back to the Corcoran is a vital part of its mission to celebrate what Mr. Corcoran called ‘the wealth of American genius.’ ”

The “Push Factors” exhibition highlights how resource exploitation, genocide, poverty, drought, femicide, gangs, corruption and racism in Guatemala led to mass migration.

Curated by Heidi McKinnon, executive director of Curators Without Borders, the exhibition includes works by James Rodríguez, who moved to Guatemala in 2004 as a human rights observer with Peace Brigades International and developed a long-term online project focused on documenting post-war processes; Rodrigo Abd, who is an Associated Press staff photographer based in Guatemala; and William Plowman, a photojournalist who focuses on issues of political, economic, social and humanitarian import around the world.