What's Left Behind, What Lies Ahead

ARRIVALS: What's Left Behind, What Lies Ahead is a collaborative multidisciplinary project that began by recording and disseminating the stories of refugees and immigrants living in Idaho and the Native Americans that have been displaced from their ancestral lands. Refugees, immigrants, and Native Americans from over 100 countries are participating in this project.

Although Idaho is reputed to be a place of relative cultural homogeneity, the stories of Idaho’s people are layered and complex. Idaho has long been a place where Native Americans have lived, been displaced from, or relocated to. For three hundred years, it has been a place where other migrants and immigrants have lived and sometimes stayed; sometimes they were welcomed, and sometimes they were rebuffed. More recently, Idaho has become a place that embraces refugees and immigrants from around the globe.

ARRIVALS: What's Left Behind, What Lies Ahead is expanding outside the borders of Idaho. In spring 2023, an art exhibition and documentary film will debut in the Goodyear Gallery at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA. ARRIVALS team members are also planning to continue the project in Slovakia to work with Ukrainian refugees, in Laos to work with the community members left behind, and in South America to work with climate/environmental refugees and the Indigenous peoples who are losing their ancestral lands.