“Still, the land gives, the field grows, and the harvest enters” presents a selection of photographs by artist Pao Houa Her. Born in Laos and raised in Minnesota, the artist draws from her family’s experience of the Hmong diaspora. The Hmong are an ethnic group from Southeast Asia who were deeply affected by the Vietnam War, after which many sought refuge in the United States. Her’s work reflects on the emotions that accompany this displacement: loss, longing, resilience, and renewal.

Her’s exhibition at Atlantic Av-Barclays Ctr invites viewers into a nonlinear narrative of remembrance. A mix of color and black-and-white images layers time, personal history, and shifting forms of recollection, while motifs such as the poppy, shown burning, fake, or flourishing, punctuate these movements. This work extends beyond the Hmong diasporic histories referenced, offering points of recognition for the many immigrant communities across New York, where connections to home are often held through cherished objects, inherited memories, and imagined landscapes.

The exhibition title was derived from the poem “Forest of Beginnings,” by Hmong poet Mai Der Vang. 

The exhibition was curated by MTA Arts & Design and the artist. Printing services were provided by Color Center with installation support by OUTFRONT Media. The exhibition will be on view until September 2026. 

Pao Houa Her is a Hmong American artist whose practice engages primarily with legacies and potentials of landscape, portraiture, and documentary photographic traditions and aesthetics, creating works that examine identity, longing, and belonging in Hmong diasporic communities.

Her’s solo exhibitions include, among others, The Imaginative Landscape at the John Michael Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan WI and the San José Museum of Art in California (2024–2026), The Modern Window: Pao Houa Her at the Museum of Modern Art (2024-2025), Paj quam ntuj / Flowers of the Sky at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis (2022–2023), Emplotment at Or Gallery in Vancouver, Canada (2020), and My grandfather turned into a tiger at Midway Contemporary Art in Minneapolis (2018). Her’s work has been included in group exhibitions at the Cantor Art Center at Stanford University, Whitney Museum of American Art in NYC, National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC, MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum in Chiang Mai, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and more. Her is the recipient of the Aperture Foundation’s Next Step Award (2023-24), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2023), Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Grant (2022), a Light Work Artist Residency (2019), and the McKnight Visual Artists Fellowship (2022 and 2016). Notable public collections include the Harvard Art Museums, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, Singapore Art Museum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Walker Art Center, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. 

Her is an assistant professor in Photography and Moving Images at the University Minnesota. She holds an MFA in Photography from the Yale University School of Art (2012) and a BFA in Photography from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (2009).

Born in Laos in 1982, Her was raised in Minnesota and is based in Blaine.