Detention Nation, An Art Exhibit

Detention Nation, like States of Incarceration (discussed yesterday), is a multi-media exhibition that sheds light on immigration detention. It showed at Houston’s Station Museum of Contemporary Art in early 2015.

Detention Nation is the project of the art-activist collective Sin Huellas (Without Fingerprints or Without a Trace), a group that takes it name from the practice of removing fingerprints with acid in an effort to avoid the consequences of a prior deportation.

The Texas Observer met with collective members Orlando Lara and Deyadira Arrellano, who spoke about their own experiences with immigration detention.

It’s interesting to hear how some things are universal. Lara talks about the lack of medicine in detention and how treating nurses consistently suggest that detainees “drink water.” There’s a strikingly similar scene in the musical Allegiance where interned Japanese are denied medicine and told to drink water.

I encourage you to check out the Facebook page, which has numerous photos of the exhibit. Any and all would be great additions to the classroom.

And for those of you at big fancy institutions who just might have an on-campus art museum, I’d consider contacting Sin Huellas to see about bringing the exhibit to your campus. It would be a powerful teaching tool.

-KitJ