There is always a special moment in every studio visit where the conversation and ideas start to flow, where connectivity between curator and artist begins to feel more organic, less forced, and eventually the first ideas begin to glimmer. Where the creative chemistry comes naturally and the vulnerability dissipates. The same is true for the 2026 Contemporary Art Month (CAM) Perennial exhibition. The Things We Carry came together naturally and organically over a series of conversations between two curators and eight artists scattered across seven cities and even two countries. We encountered a group of creatives who are thinking about the physical, emotional, and even the metaphysical forces they carry through their lives and work. 

This is also a milestone exhibition, marking the 40th year of CAM. The month-long celebration of contemporary art began in June 1986 alongside Contemporary at Blue Star's inaugural exhibition. In 2003, CAM became an independent project, and in 2012, CAM introduced the "Perennial" Exhibition, inviting a curator from outside San Antonio to work with the city's contemporary artists. Across its 40-year history, CAM has been organized by countless artists, curators, and supporters. It has held exhibitions in institutions across the city and worked with curators from around the world. The 2026 Perennial is not just a reflection of its exhibiting artists, but a testament to the grit and passion of San Antonio's art community, the same community that has carried this organization forward for four decades.

The Things We Carry embodies this through its very structure, placing artists from around Texas and the Southwest in artist-run spaces across San Antonio. It is a celebration of the act of sharing, of making space for difficult truths, and the resilience required to carry them. The eight exhibiting artists, Brenda Melgoza Ciardiello (Fort Worth), Daniela Oliver de Portillo (San Antonio), Eva Gabriella Flynn (Las Cruces, NM), Jesselyn Gordon (San Antonio), Yuliya Lanina (Austin), Tina Linville (Waco), Matt Rebholz (Austin), and Adrienne Simmons (Houston) are examining archives and histories, geographies and materiality, realities and fictions. What they carry—memories, traumas, places both real and imagined—becomes the material from which this exhibition is built.