HOUSTON – Artist Saif Azzuz is making his solo museum debut with a powerful exhibition at the Blaffer Art Museum that confronts the complex histories of land, privatization, and Indigenous identity in Texas. Titled “Keet Hegehlpa’ (the water is rising),” the exhibition delves into the fabricated myths and settler-colonial systems that have shaped the region.
Azzuz, a California-born artist, utilizes a diverse range of media, including site-specific installations, new paintings, and assemblage, to explore the stories woven into the land now known as Houston. The work directly challenges the historical narratives used to displace and control the area’s original inhabitants, the Sana, Atakapa-Ishak, Akokisa, and Karankawa peoples.
A central focus of the exhibition is the examination of archival materials, such as 19th-century advertisements from the Allen Brothers, which deceptively portrayed the Buffalo Bayou as an idyllic European-style landscape to attract settlers. Through his art, Azzuz deconstructs these manufactured fictions, responding to the ongoing impacts of land theft and what he terms “carceral realities.”
The exhibition is a collaborative family effort, featuring contributions from Lulu Thrower, Elizabeth Azzuz, Viola Azzuz, Moya Azzuz, and Colleen Colegrove. Together, they draw upon shared ecological knowledge to visualize histories of land stewardship and Indigenous resilience. This approach embodies the concept of “survivance,” a term coined by Anishinaabe writer Gerald Vizenor that merges the ideas of survival and resistance. Azzuz’s work seeks to subvert continued attempts to displace Indigenous communities by centering the interconnected life force present in all beings.
Saif Azzuz has an extensive exhibition history and was a 2022 SFMOMA SECA Award finalist. His work is held in numerous public and private collections, including the de Young Museum and the North Carolina Museum of Art.
“Keet Hegehlpa’ (the water is rising)” is now on view at the Blaffer Art Museum and will run through December 20, 2025.
