Reclaiming Home: Remembering the Topeka Bottoms

February 27–March 27, 2026

Reclaiming Home: Remembering the Topeka Bottoms is a project directed by professor of Visual Art María Velasco, created with filmmaker and producer Matt Jacobson, oral historian Valerie Mendoza, and researcher and archivist Neill Esquibel-Kennedy, that addresses the mass displacement resulting from urban renewal in the Topeka Bottoms. More than twenty blocks of thriving and diverse communities and businesses were bulldozed over in less than 10 years. Through oral histories, community mapping, and sculpture, Jacobson, Mendoza, Esquibel-Kennedy, and Velasco preserve and share the memories and histories of the Topeka Bottoms community.