Tuesday, July 14, 2026

Tongva Artist’s Water-Themed Installation Runs Through 2029 at the Huntington

[photo credit: The Huntington]

A site-specific work traces regional freshwater springs through photography, ceramics and Tongva poetry

A large-scale installation by Tongva artist Mercedes Dorame examining the region’s historic freshwater springs opened March 22, 2026, at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, where it will remain on view through March 2029.

“Deliquescence: Sites of Transformation” grew out of Dorame’s 2023-24 residency at the Huntington and combines her own photographs of the Southern California landscape with historical images of regional springs, alongside sculpture, painting, ceramics and a soundscape of Tongva poetry, according to the museum.

Dorame is a member of the Gabrielino Tongva Indians of California and served as the Huntington’s 2023-24 artist-in-residence. The installation’s title refers to a process in which a substance absorbs atmospheric moisture until it dissolves into a new solution, according to Huntington.

The work opened as part of a broader reinstallation of the museum’s Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art, alongside two other new presentations: Laura Aguilar’s “Body and Landscape” and Sandy Rodriguez’s “Book 13.” Together, the three works expand the Huntington’s “Borderlands” installation, which first opened in November 2021, according to a Huntington press release. They also complement the museum’s broader “THIS LAND IS …” initiative, a multidisciplinary exploration of land, United States history and American identities.

Dorame, born in Los Angeles in 1980, holds a bachelor’s degree from UCLA and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. She is a member of the regular faculty in the Photo Media Program at CalArts.

“I am interested in the power water holds to transform and be transformed, to dissolve or melt away,” Dorame said, according to a Huntington press release announcing the installation.

Dennis Carr, the Virginia Steele Scott Chief Curator of American Art, said the piece builds on Dorame’s research into the museum’s holdings. “By combining her contemporary photographs with extensive research into The Huntington’s collections, she draws our attention to springs as sites of culture and deep memory,” Carr said, according to the same press release.

The Huntington sits along Pasadena’s southern border in San Marino, placing the installation within the same San Gabriel Valley landscape as Pasadena.

Aguilar’s exhibition draws on works acquired from her estate and centers her self-portraiture within Southern California and Southwestern landscapes, including her piece “In Sandy’s Room,” which returned to the Huntington’s permanent collection as part of the reinstallation, according to the museum. Rodriguez, a Caltech-Huntington Art + Research Fellow and the museum’s 2025-26 Hannah and Russel Kully Distinguished Fellow in the History of American Art, drew on colonial Mexican sources and 19th-century maps from the Huntington’s collections for “Book 13,” her largest installation to date, according to the museum.

Dorame’s installation is on view in the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art alongside Aguilar’s exhibition, running through September 7, 2026, and Rodriguez’s “Book 13,” on display through April 26, 2027, according to the Huntington.

“Mercedes Dorame — Deliquescence: Sites of Transformation” — through March 2029 | The Huntington, San Marino. Link: https://www.huntington.org/exhibitions