Sacred Objects + Adoption Stories

Adoption uncensored. It’s love and loss. Connection, disconnection, reconnection.

Adoption weaves through lives, fundamentally altering them. Spanning generations and cultures, six people share their adoption stories through the lens of personally sacred objects — with links to their projects. Interviews by Alex Behr. Paintings ©Christine Shields.

William Smith

Gloria Harrison

Lincoln Kwan Miller

Eli Zheng Behr Hall

Elowyn Collins

Nick Stady

VOICES

  • “When I first talked to my [birth] mom she said it was a miracle. She’d say to people, ‘I knew I’d find him eventually.’”

    —William Smith

  • “There’s no way [my mom’s] going to continue on this path of drinking and drugs and men if I’m pregnant. But she did, she kept on this path.”

    —Gloria Harrison

  • “Unlike the prevailing concept, I don’t see adoption as inherently good for the child.”

    —Lincoln Kwan Miller

  • “I’m not a little toy to be given away. I’m a person!”

    —Eli Zheng Behr Hall

  • “I’d accepted my finding story that the [orphanage] told my parents — I had accepted that blindly.”

    —Elowyn Collins

  • “I’m gay. And that could also make it difficult if I was not adopted and was still living in Guatemala.”

    —Nick Stady

Adoption Passages

An Evening of Stories, Art + Music

Thur Nov 16, 2023, 6:30 pm Open Signal

In this broadcast, eight performers voice their own truths across cultures and generations. The contents are not suitable for all audiences. Filmed and edited by Vo McBurney at Open Signal, it is streaming on YouTube.

  • Alex Behr on breastfeeding as an adoptive mom.

  • After meeting her birth father, Maya Noah deepens her political activism.

  • Lincoln Kwan Miller creates environmental self-portraits as a search for identity.

  • Nastashia Minto performs poetry to honor her grandparents.

  • Ali Maaxa shares synchronous bonds with her newly found birth mother.

  • William Smith on sacrifices made by his adoptive and birth mothers.

  • Amy Temple Harper on pretending she’s white.

  • Ending with music performed by Jo Brickman.

This project was supported by a generous Make-Build-Learn grant from the Regional Arts & Culture Council.