Xyza Cruz Bacani: The Diaspora is Home
6PM
This solo exhibition by Xyza Cruz Bacani presents photographs of the Asian American diaspora, from portraits in living rooms to scenes of community gatherings, food traditions, and religious practices. Installed within a living room environment, Bacani’s work evokes belonging and cultural continuity, transforming the gallery into a space of warmth, reflection, and collective memory.
The Diaspora is Home runs from October 4 – November 2, 2025. The gallery is open Saturdays, 12:00 – 6:00pm or by appointment. Admission is free.
The Diaspora is Home invites you into the lived experience of immigrants in Queens. When we leave our motherlands, we take more than our belongings. We bring our languages, flavors, the strength of our ancestors, and resilience forged in hardship. Leaving is never simple. Arriving is a different story. We carry the pains of separations; traumas that we can still taste in our mouths. We learned to find joy in our small victories, pride in our survival, and accept the scars of migration as beauty in building anew. This exhibition traces these dualities: joy and struggle, memory and reinvention.
Developed through visits to homes and close engagement with community members, Bacani’s works reflect an intimate process of trust and reciprocity. The accompanying living room installation mirrors the spaces in which the photographs were taken, creating a familiar and welcoming environment. By inviting visitors to gather, sit, and reflect, the installation transforms Flux IV into a site of hospitality and shared presence, underscoring the centrality of home within the diasporic experience. Each work in The Diaspora is Home speaks to the search for home, the courage to remain visible, and the tenderness of community. In today’s world, where immigrants are portrayed negatively and our existence is questioned daily, we choose to tell our own stories.
Join us on this journey. Bring your own stories. Together, we honor the spaces between us, find our home in the diaspora where kindness grows, hope lives, and celebrate our undeniable existence.
Xyza Cruz Bacani: The Diaspora is Home is presented as part of the artist’s 2025 NYSCA Fellowship. Special thanks to Fujifilm US, Martin Kaminer, and the Tim Hermann Charitable Family Foundation for their support.
About the Artist
Xyza Cruz Bacani (b. 1987, the Philippines) is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist and writer based in New York. Her experience as a second-generation domestic worker in Hong Kong informs her practice and engagement in less visible, erased, and underreported world events. Her works explore migration, transnational identity, climate change, and labor. Bacani received her M.A. in Arts Politics at New York University. She has been recognized as one of Asia Society’s Asia 21 Young Leaders, Artpil 30 Under 30 Women Photographers, Forbes’s 30 Under 30 Asia, and BBC’s 100 Women of the World. Her artistic accomplishments are documented by the Philippines House of Representatives under ‘House Resolution No. 1969’. She received multiple grants from the New York State Council of the Arts, WMA Commission, the Open Society Moving Walls Foundation, and the Pulitzer Center, and was one of the Magnum Foundation Photography and Social Justice Fellows. She is also the author of We Are Like Air. Bacani’s work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of the City of New York, Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago, KADIST Collection, Asian Art Museum San Francisco, Foreign Correspondents Club Hong Kong, New York University Special Collections, and numerous private collections worldwide. www.xyzacruzbacani.com