The Souls of Resilience: Portraits and Stories of Immigrant and Refugee Women

Through large-scale watercolor portraits and collaborative storytelling, Chinese-born, Idaho-based artist Yidan Guo brings forward the individual lives of immigrant and refugee women—women too often reduced to labels or left out of public memory. Developed through consent-based interviews, photography, and sustained relationships, her ongoing project The Souls of Resilience explores how migration reshapes identity, language, work, family, cultural memory, and the search for belonging.
In the presentation, Guo will share the personal and artistic journey behind the project, including her own experience of rebuilding a life in the United States after immigrating from China in 2013. She will discuss how she builds trust with participants and approaches their stories with consent, care, and respect, and how portraiture can create space for dignity, complexity, and connection without reducing a life to a simple story of suffering or triumph. A one-day display of selected works from the project will accompany the presentation in the Rick Allen Room. The program will conclude with audience questions and conversation.
Tuesday, November 10, 2026
Cost: Free
Doors open: 6 p.m.
Presentation starts: 6:30 p.m.