Anna Maria Maiolino was displaced twice in her life: first from fascist Italy, where she was born in 1942, and then from the military dictatorship of Brazil, the country where she has resided most of her life. These seismic shifts had an impact on her largely autobiographical art, as she seemingly spent years waiting to finally settle in one place.

Maiolino is currently having her first major US retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles. In addition, she is featured in a massive survey at the Hammer Museum on radical art by Latin American women.