CULTURAL IMMIGRANT Initiative with PS 86
2026

Retablos: The Art of Remembering

Lehman College Art Gallery is grateful to New York City Council member Eric Dinowitz for this designation. Workshops open with an overview of the project’s core objectives: to use storytelling and art making as tools for encouraging students to take pride in their cultural identities, express their emotions, foster a sense of belonging, recognize the U.S. as a nation of immigrants, broaden their perspectives, and celebrate diversity. At its heart, the program aimed to help students discover and appreciate their own voices.

This multimedia residency centered on storytelling and artistic expression through the tradition of retablos in the Peruvian Andes, where these objects are used to preserve personal memories, traditions, and identity. Led by by Peruvian artist Niceli Portugal, students designed and assembled their own small wooden retablos inspired by their lived experiences, family histories, and cultural traditions. Through painting, sculpture, drawing, and assemblage techniques, students transformed memories into visual narratives, each a reflection of their identities and personal narratives.

The residency gave students, especially those from immigrant families, the opportunity to ground their memories in a place and preserve moments connected to migration and home. Students shared stories of first experiences in the United States, including first birthday celebrations in new neighborhoods, first meals after arriving in the country, and first baseball games. Other students reflected on visits to the countries where their families are from like attending the carnival in Ecuador or a beach day in Dominican Republic. Others remembered landscapes, rivers, mountains, trees from places far away, including Yemen, Mexico, Ecuador, Honduras, Venezuela and Dominican Republic. Students also portrayed traditions carried across borders into New York City, including Day of the Dead, Ramadan, and New Year’s Day. Some students used their retablos to express hopes for the future, imagining more caring communities and creating retablos centered around offering free food to others. Others incorporated stories passed down through generations, including legends such as La Llorona.

Many of the retablos included hearts as symbols of love, representing the idea that a part of their hearts remained in the places where these memories took place. On the final day of the residency, students presented their completed retablos to the class, celebrating their experiences, identities, and memories.