Belongings: A Collection of Things Nelson Left Behind
Belongings is a humanistic exhibition that explores the immigrant life of Nelson Baldemor, a Filipino-American resident of Danville, Virginia, whose life was suddenly cut short in 2021. Having no next of kin, Nelson’s things were saved by a caring neighbor, Maria Lourdes Pérez Muñiz. Now a resident of Columbia, South Carolina, Muñiz passed these to Chiara Cox, a local Filipino American cultural advocate who transformed Baldemor’s treasured personal belongings into this exhibit of an immigrant’s memory. Belongings invites us to look closely at the remnants of a single life. In doing so, we discover the universal principles of community, resilience, and care that Filipino Americans weave into the local fabric of the neighborhoods they call home.