Beatriz Cortez: The Portals

Beatriz Cortez: The Portals is an installation in multiple locations that explores alternative genealogies of Williams College. Stitching together different voices that inhabited the landscape that became Western Massachusetts, The Portals will invite viewers to coexist with various people who have believed in equality, justice, curiosity, diversity, and freedom in the area where Williamstown was created, and also to imagine the cyclical dimension of these struggles that seem to repeat themselves in a nation plagued by inequality.

The Portals consists of three outdoor installations on Main Street: Historic House, located next to Hopkins Hall; XX, in front of Griffin Hall; and Mohican Homelands, located behind the Hopkins Observatory. And inside the museum are two installations: Speculative Speech by Lucy Terry Prince in the Rotunda; and, located in the adjacent Stoddard Gallery, Ancient Object Labeled as Human Head Wearing a Peaked Headdress, One Migrant to Another, in Memory of your True Name and your Land and Ancient Object Labeled as Human Head Emerging from Monster Jaws, One Migrant to Another, in Memory of your True Name and your Land.