Los Angeles has a beautiful new reason to visit the Skirball Cultural Center. Jenny Yurshansky: What We Carry opens on Thursday, October 22, 2026, and it turns something wonderfully familiar — the keepsakes families treasure — into contemporary art full of memory, warmth and connection.
Yurshansky, the Skirball’s Artist in Residence, explores how the experiences of immigration and displacement shape us, personally and collectively. Through community storytelling — sharing stories to preserve culture and foster connection — she asks how we remember family history and how those memories shape our sense of home and belonging. Her own story inspires the work: born stateless in Rome in 1979 after her parents fled Soviet-era Moldova as refugees, the Los Angeles-based artist examines the narratives carried in everyday objects and even in our bodies.
The exhibition grew out of workshops Yurshansky led at the Skirball from January to July 2026, where people from across Los Angeles shared their family histories and the heirlooms connected to them. On view, delicate 3D-printed sculptural replicas of those personal keepsakes sit alongside objects from the Skirball’s own museum collection, giving family mementos the same care and importance as museum treasures.
Organized by the Skirball Cultural Center and curated by Vicki Phung Smith, What We Carry invites visitors to honor memories joyful and tender, shared and unspoken — and to find empathy in each other’s stories. General admission is $20, with discounts for seniors, students and children, and admission is free for everyone on Thursdays. Happy City News recommends making a day of it in the Skirball’s gardens and galleries.
Photo: Skirball Cultural Center
