Partial installation view of Mercedes Dorame, Deliquescence: Sites of Transformation, The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, March 2026.
Deliquescence: Sites of Transformation
Deliquescence: Sites of Transformation
Mercedes Dorame
Mercedes Dorame
Mercedes Dorame’s Deliquescence: Sites of Transformation is a large-scale installation that links photography, painting, sculpture, ceramics, and a soundscape of Tongva poetry. Freshwater springs, like those found throughout Southern California, are sites of deep history, where Indigenous peoples gathered and cultures flourished. For Dorame, the spring is a site of encounter, a place where histories are surfaced through the historical archive, where memory is preserved and culture shared. The project reflects Dorame’s ongoing interest in place, memory, and the presence of ancestral histories. When histories come to the surface, as when water courses from the earth, this encounter raises questions about what is preserved and how it is cared for.
Deliquescence: Sites of Transformation premiered on March 22, 2026 at the Huntington Museum.
2020
Visual Arts, Installation, Photography
Partial installation view of Mercedes Dorame, Deliquescence: Sites of Transformation, The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, March 2026.
Partial installation view of Mercedes Dorame, Deliquescence: Sites of Transformation, The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, March 2026.
Mercedes Dorame, Finding a Path I - Chwiishkeshmenokre, 2026. Courtesy of Mercedes Dorame. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
Mercedes Dorame, Finding a Path II - Chwiishkeshmenokre, 2026. Courtesy of Mercedes Dorame. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
Partial installation view of Mercedes Dorame, Deliquescence: Sites of Transformation, The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, March 2026.
About Mercedes Dorame
Los Angeles, CA and Tijuana, Mexico
Mercedes Dorame (2020 Creative Capital Awardee) uses photography and installation to explore, reimagine, and connect to her Tongva tribal culture and bring visibility to contemporary indigenous experience. Born in Los Angeles, CA, Dorame received her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and her undergraduate degree from UCLA. Dorame’s work is in the permanent collections of the Hammer Museum, SFMoMA, the Triton Museum, the Allen Memorial Art Museum, the de Saisset Museum, The Montblanc Foundation Collection, and the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum. She is the recipient of grants from the Montblanc Art Commission, the New York Foundation for the Arts, Loop Artist Residency, the James Phelan Award for California-born visual artists, En Foco’s New Works Photography Fellowship Awards program, Galería de la Raza for a solo exhibition there, the Harpo Foundation for a residency at the Vermont Studio Center, and from the Photography Department at SFAI for her MFA Studies.
She is currently visiting faculty at CalArts, and was recently honored by UCLA as part of the centennial initiative “UCLA: Our Stories Our Impact,” and was part of the Hammer Museum’s 2018 Made in LA exhibition. She has also displayed her work at the Triton Museum, the deSaisset, LACE, and Reflect Space, as well as other international venues. Her writing has been featured in News From Native California and her artwork has been highlighted by PBS Newshour, KCET Artbound, The New York Times, Art in America, Hyperallergic, KQED, Artsy, ARTnews, The Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle, among others.
Mercedes Dorame (2020 Creative Capital Awardee) uses photography and installation to explore, reimagine, and connect to her Tongva tribal culture and bring visibility to contemporary indigenous experience. Born in Los Angeles, CA, Dorame received her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and her undergraduate degree from UCLA. Dorame’s work is in the permanent collections of the Hammer Museum, SFMoMA, the Triton Museum, the Allen Memorial Art Museum, the de Saisset Museum, The Montblanc Foundation Collection, and the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum. She is the recipient of grants from the Montblanc Art Commission, the New York Foundation for the Arts, Loop Artist Residency, the James Phelan Award for California-born visual artists, En Foco’s New Works Photography Fellowship Awards program, Galería de la Raza for a solo exhibition there, the Harpo Foundation for a residency at the Vermont Studio Center, and from the Photography Department at SFAI for her MFA Studies.
She is currently visiting faculty at CalArts, and was recently honored by UCLA as part of the centennial initiative “UCLA: Our Stories Our Impact,” and was part of the Hammer Museum’s 2018 Made in LA exhibition. She has also displayed her work at the Triton Museum, the deSaisset, LACE, and Reflect Space, as well as other international venues. Her writing has been featured in News From Native California and her artwork has been highlighted by PBS Newshour, KCET Artbound, The New York Times, Art in America, Hyperallergic, KQED, Artsy, ARTnews, The Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle, among others.