Sanctuary
January 28 – March 07, 2026
Opening Reception: January 28, 2026, 6-8pm.

Fridman Gallery is honored to announce Sanctuary, a group exhibition examining root causes and psychological effects of displacement. The exhibition title refers to “sanctuary cities”, including New York, which are supposed to afford legal protection for immigrants, and, in a more general sense, to sanctuaries as physical and emotional safe spaces. 

In recent years, the world has experienced unprecedented interconnectedness brought about by online communications, climate change, and the COVID pandemic. Seemingly, we are more networked and closer, more aware of technological and biological ties and risks that have universal effects. We have more access to information about global suffering than ever before, yet it has not translated into deeper empathy. Apparent proximity has not led to integration. 

In fact, a backlash has occurred — nationalist politics have led to tighter restrictions on movement of people and goods, and to censorship of free expression. Human capacity for empathy actually may have diminished with the informational overload. Without empathy, unable to feel the conditions of others, we are unable to admit the shared responsibility for, and susceptibility to, those conditions. We are less inclined to learn, less likely to survive. 

Immigrants and artists, channeling individual and collective experiences of trauma and healing, are messengers of powerful stories we can assimilate as our own. Sanctuary aims to create a space where a shared sense of displacement leads to shared empathy. 

The exhibition includes an octophonic (eight-channel) sound installation by Samita Sinha and Daniel Neumann, titled Co-emergence. The work unfolds through two distinct voices, like two rivers, emerge simultaneously, born of each other and born together. One sings the micro-fluctuations and dimensions of a single vibration; the other sings the eight verses of Shikshashtakam, a 16th-century chant of liberation and devotion from the Vaishnava tradition. The listener is invited to participate in and expand the co-emergence by experiencing and actualizing the sonic architecture through their own listening and somatic presence.

The exhibition features 16 artists of diverse backgrounds facing complexities of our times, including:

— Deprivation of rights: Heather Dewey-Hagborg’s comic-book detailing the story of the Pentagon whistleblower Chelsea Manning; Jared Owens’ stamp-and-soil paintings of prison yards; Spandita Malik’s photos of survivors of sexual violence in rural India, embroidered by the victims;

— Living between worlds: Alibaba Awrang’s calligraphy made on the U.S. military base in Qatar where his family escaped just as the Taliban conquered Afghanistan; Lesia Khomenko’s painting of blurry footage from a Kamikaze drone approaching a soldier hiding in the trees; Jerome Lagarrigue’s scenes of Parisian street protests; Aura Satz’s lenticular closeups of a bullet entering and exiting a surface, forcing the viewer to walk “between the bullet and the hole”.

— Hope charged with precarity: Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka’s and Dindga McCannon’s hand-sewn tapestries enveloping protagonists in the comfort of ancestral materials; Lewinale Havette’s depictions of femininity, sensuality and spaces where women can safely convene; Helena Kozuchowicz’s silhouette longing for respite and connection; Fidelis Joseph’s and Will Maxen’s shifting color fields linking emotions and memories; Samita Sinha’s meditative vocals resonating through the gallery’s 8-channel sound system; and Cynthia Alberto’s handwoven “Sanctuary” on the gallery’s facade.