In response to current events, this mixed media installation tackles one of today's most controversial human rights issues.

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First exhibited in September 2019 at the Art Share LA gallery in the Los Angeles Arts District, the Junior Wear 2019: ICE Age Girls Dress was created in response to the US immigration policy affecting families who seek in the USA refuge from violence and desperate poverty in their home countries. Kids as young as infants are routinely separated from their families by border and ICE officials. Often they are held in long-term detention as a deliberate deterrent targeted at families crossing US borders to seek asylum.

 

Many kids get lost in the system lacking adequate record keeping and rife with abuse. Some children perish all together, others are traumatized for life. 

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The textile in this work has been custom designed and printed. Additional materials include thermal blankets used at the detention centers, zip ties used as hand cuffs, and the barbed wire installed the at the border crossing fences. The red silk embroidery threads symbolize the unraveling and loss of familiar lives, and broken identities, families and communities.