Borderlands

The history of the United States has been defined by a series of cultural encounters along a constantly shifting, ever-evolving border. From the earliest period of European settlement in the 15th and 16th centuries, to the westward expansion movements of the 19th century to today, the borderlands of the Americas were zones of cultural contact and exchange. They are places where cultures met, and where the objects created or interchanged reflected the complex multiracial, multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural contexts in which they were made. Artworks in The Huntington’s collections highlight histories of migration and the close relationship between art, land, and ecology.