Between Here and There: Immigration as a Shared Practice in Tatiana Martínez Collevati’s Work

Being an immigrant is not something you choose, at least not as an identity. You can choose to move abroad for many reasons: to study, to work, to follow a dream, to survive, to escape war. But stepping away from home is never simple. It means leaving something behind, knowing that even if you return, you will never be the same. At the same time, the place you move to will never fully become home either. Even when it feels familiar, there is always something missing. You crave food from another country, miss the hills outside your window, the games you played as a child, the way things once sounded and moved around you. You search for words that do not exist in this other language to explain how you feel. Something in you sifts, without asking.

This tension sits at the centre of Tatiana Martinez’s curatorial practice. Originally from Latin America and now based in London, Tatiana works from this in-between space. Her desire is to connect those who live inside it. People who do not fully belong anywhere, yet somehow belong everywhere. Through her curatorial practice, she creates spaces for those who move between cultures, languages, and identities to meet one another. When you are in that space, the true connection becomes possible. You recognise others who have gone through the same struggle, those you hope will stay, even when staying still feels fragile and uncertain.

This desire to connect led Tatiana to co-found Home Sick, a London-based collective formed with Noor Nematt after they met while working at the Natural History Museum. Both arrived in the UK through different journeys but shared a similar sense of isolation. Home Sick emerged as a response to that feeling, creating spaces that are informal, flexible, and rooted in care. Influenced by Tatiana’s background in architecture and her research into DIY interventions, the group works with pop-up venues prioritising accessibility over institutional approval.

One of the first projects they developed was Sumud. Organised as a fundraising exhibition in support of Palestine, the project raised funds for INARA, a charity providing mental health support for Palestinian communities. Exhibited at Metre Squared, Sumud brought together thirteen Middle Eastern and Arab artists working across photography, painting, music, and live performance. The exhibition allowed different practices to exist together without hierarchy, creating a shared space of solidarity where language barriers dissolve over music, and strangers bond over memories of other continents.

Even though their latest show, DGTL GRL moved away from immigration as an explicit subject, it continued Home Sick’s interest in connection. Held at Galleria Objets, it focused on the ways digital culture shapes how people communicate, relate, and feel close to one another. Bringing together artists working across VR, video, AI-generated works, sound, and installation, DGTL GRL looked at the internet as something that both connects and separates us. The exhibition created a shared physical space for reflection, to slow down, meet, and experience the work together.

What remains open, however, is how these temporary communities might be sustained beyond the moment of the exhibition. The popularity of Home Sick’s projects, and the level of care invested in creating welcoming, inclusive atmospheres, suggests that the conversations they open deserve a longer life. The issues they address, from migration to displacement to digital alienation, risk losing momentum if they remain contained within one-night events or short exhibition runs.

This raises a wider question often directed at socially engaged art: whether it stops at highlighting problems rather than finding ways to support practical, long-term change. I hope that Tatiana and the collective will choose to build on what already exists and extend their work beyond temporary encounters and into longer-term commitments. One way forward could involve partnerships with organisations, such as INARA, to keep these conversations alive beyond the gallery. What they have created feels necessary. The question is how far they will take it.