EDEL RODRIGUEZ

WORM: Drawing Exile, Defending Democracy

Before he was "America's Illustrator in Chief," before his TIME covers of a melting Trump became the defining images of a political era, Edel Rodriguez was a nine-year-old boy on a farm outside Havana, labeled a "worm" by the only government he had ever known. That label, "gusano," was Fidel Castro's word for the 125,000 Cubans who fled during the 1980 Mariel boatlift. Rodriguez took it back. He made it the title of his acclaimed graphic memoir, WORM: A Cuban American Odyssey, and turned a slur into a testament.

This October, SE CLT is proud to bring Edel Rodriguez to Charlotte for the second annual Fall of Freedom, a national movement of galleries and arts institutions using creative work to answer authoritarianism with resistance, memory, and beauty. In partnership with McColl Center, SE CLT will host Rodriguez for a book signing of WORM alongside a display of the bold, unflinching artwork that has made him one of the most recognized political artists working today, from his early life in Cuba to his years confronting power on the world stage.

This is a rare Charlotte appearance from an artist whose work has appeared on jumbotrons, magazine covers, and museum walls around the globe, and whose personal story, of exile, reinvention, and the refusal to stay silent, could not be more relevant to this moment. Come for the signature red and black palette that has become instantly recognizable. Stay for the story underneath it: a family's escape, an artist's education, and a defense of democracy built one image at a time.