“Double Helix Shovels” by Elliott Katz Credit: Courtesy

There may be no better place for an art exhibition about migration than a former train ticket office. Don’t miss Burlington artist Elliott Katz’s first museum solo show, “The Purpose of Your Trip,” at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center’s Ticket Gallery. Katz has made subtle tweaks to the space, replacing drawer pulls on wood cabinets with cast-bronze versions of barber tools — replicas of ones his grandparents used in their New Jersey business before they were forcibly moved to a Japanese internment camp in 1942. Katz transforms items that speak to family, history, work and displacement, such as a pair of shovels twisted into a DNA-like double helix. Other objects — replicas of his son’s soccer ball, his U.S. passport — are damaged and repaired with gold using the Japanese technique called kintsugi. Those pieces reference the fear inherent in having a cross-border family today, especially one with inherited trauma. Katz articulates his history with a beautiful command of craft, effortlessly working wood and metal into story form. Though government policies may try to restrict free movement, Katz’s creativity is unfettered.

‘Elliott Katz: The Purpose of Your Trip’ On view through March 6 at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center.

This article appears in Love & Marriage Issue • 2026.

Alice Dodge joined Seven Days in April 2024 as visual arts editor and proofreader. She earned a bachelor's degree at Oberlin College and an MFA in visual studies at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She previously worked at the Center for Arts and Learning in Montpelier, Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, and Midway Contemporary Art in Minneapolis. She is a visual artist with one lizard, two cats and too many chickens.