Cuando Me Acuesto Me Vuelvo Una Barrera (When I Lay Down I Become a Barrier) examines how the conditions surrounding labor, rest, and freedom of movement are determined by colonial and capitalist ideologies. Through weaving, sculpture, prints, and an accompanying zine, Barrera envisions alternative value systems that are informed by the power of withholding, a tactic common in labor strikes. The exhibition includes hand-knotted chinchorros (or hammocks) that defy their design and cannot bear weight, alongside works that contend with the extraction of labor, land, water, and other natural resources across the Americas. Flora and fauna, figures in motion, and archival research come together to draw connections between exploitation of the environment and the material experiences of the working class. In the face of social inequality and climate degradation, Cuando Me Acuesto Me Vuelvo Una Barrera proposes the liberatory possibilities of interdependence over oppressive conceptions of time, control, and productivity. 

This exhibition is organized by Lindsey Berfond, Associate Curator with Isa López, Administrative Assistant – Curatorial.

Christina Barrera (b. South Florida, 1989) earned a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an MFA from Hunter College. Barrera has exhibited her work widely including solo exhibitions at mtn space, Lake Worth, FL (2025); MAMA Projects, New York, NY (2024); Swivel Saugerties, Saugerties, NY (2022); and Hunter East Harlem Gallery, Galeria del Barrio, and Hope Community, Inc., New York, NY (2021). Barrera has also exhibited in group exhibitions at Margot Samel, New York, NY (2024); LATITUDE Gallery, New York, NY (2023); Fullerton College Art Gallery, Fullerton, CA (2023); The National Academy of Design, Governor’s Island, NY (2022); and Hauser & Wirth, New York, NY (2021), among other venues. She is a Jacques and Natasha Gelman Trust Scholar and recipient of the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Award (2022), the Hunter College Leeman-Boksenbaum Thesis Prize (2022), and was recently named a 2026-2027 Powerhouse Arts Artist-in-Residence. Barrera lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.