Public Project
Spaces Of Detention
Spaces of Detention is a collaborative project that examines through collages, drawings, and written narratives how detention infrastructure and architecture in the northern state of New Jersey shapes the social interactions, well-being, and mental health of migrants.
Through community workshops, I invited migrants who have been incarcerated—in Essex, Hudson, Bergen County jail, and the Elizabeth detention center—to make drawings and narratives about the conditions and experiences they live within these spaces. With these narratives I created a series of collages and in association with the organization Photoville and We Women, together we created public art in cities such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.
This work invites American citizens to question how detention affects and impacts the lives of migrants, their families, and their communities. And reflect that the criminalization of migrants through incarceration is not a solution to stop human displacement.
The art resulting from the workshops accompanied campaigns and initiatives that seek to stop the expansion and detention of immigrants in the state of New Jersey through the legal organization American Friends Service Committee.
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