Stepping into Olivia’s monarch installation set was a magical moment. I felt transported to a space where I could play with monarchs, while having a lovely interaction with the artist.
I have always loved monarchs. I knew that summer was almost over and that there were cooler days ahead when the monarchs visited our garden in New Jersey.
There was something bright and cheery and dependable about them. I wondered how something so fragile could travel such long distances. Fragile yet strong, beautiful and resilient, somehow they came to represent hope to me.
The symbol of the monarch makes perfect sense to represent what we all do, which is to move, to migrate. It represents all of us who are immigrants. Fragile yet strong and full of hope. I say all of us, because, at one point or another, someone in everyone’s family immigrated to somewhere from somewhere else, and probably many of our family members did it many times. It’s what we humans have been doing since many of our ancestors left Africa many thousands of years ago.
Los Angeles, CA
