“Deaths in ICE Custody since January 2025,”cyanotype on decommissioned flag fabric from the Department of Homeland Security, 38 in. x ongoing.
This banner is an ongoing index of individuals who have died in ICE custody since the most recent presidential election, when ICE activity intensified across the US. The portraits are displayed in chronological order, with blank spaces left for those whose images are unfindable, and in place of mugshots or photos that were otherwise taken or published non-consensually. A QR code directs viewers to a open-access database tracking each individual’s public representation, details about where and when they died, and ways in which viewers might honor their legacy by responding to lasting needs (ie. fundraisers to support family members, legal cases, aid organizations). The book included in this installation displays the digital negatives used to print each portrait.
Each installation of this work has included a sign-up sheet for volunteers, as I plan to host a workshop to embroider the name of each individual represented in the banner with decommissioned Presidential thread. If you can sew and would like to help, DM me! If you already DM’d me, I’ll reach out the second I have a space to host the workshop.
Installation photos by @evastragephotography
Today I am thinking about a prayer that my family calls “in each and every generation.” In each and every generation, Jews should experience the Exodus as if we ourselves had just been liberated from Egypt along with the Jews of that time. For God did not only liberate our ancestors, but us, their descendants, as well.
Our oppression did not end with our liberation from Egypt. My grandfather, Jozef Atlas, watched his hometown of Rzeszów become a German-occupied ghetto in 1941. He worked in labor camps from 1943-44, at which point he was taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau. His train was intended for the gas chambers; an SS commander intervened because the men on the train could do manual labor. Camps were liquidated in 1945, and Joe was taken on a death march. He escaped in May.
The Torah codifies the Jewish commitment to justice imparted upon our ancestors in their liberation from Egypt. they vowed to remember their enslavement and retell the story every year. as we recall our liberation from slavery we are able to empathize with the plight of other peoples. we are taught to remember our experiences of oppression, and fight injustice wherever we are.
As we recall our oppression under Nazism, we must vow not to let our ancestors’ stories, their experiences, their wisdom, to be forgotten. We remember the violence of the past in dedication to protecting those who are oppressed. We must pray that our remembrance does not become fear, as Jewish fear is used before our eyes to justify the destruction of children, mothers, doctors, and journalists. We dedicate ourselves to a freeing of body and soul of all human beings, as our ancestors did before us.
We remember Hannah Senesh and Haviva Reik, who parachuted behind enemy lines in Hungary and Slovakia to organize resistance and rescue Jews. We remember Vladka Meed, and Chaika and Frumka Plotnitski, who served as courriers and smuggled arms for the ghetto fighters. We remember Rosa Robota, who organized the smuggling of dynamite to blow up a crematorium in Auschwitz. Chaika Grossman, Gusta Drenger, Zivia Lubetkin, Gisi Fleishman, Tosia Altman, Zofia Yamaika, Niuta Teitelboim. These are but a few of the names we know.
Today’s Art Market for Mutual Aid with @bird.press raised $161 for @aya.shaqalean and her family!! Thank you for supporting, and see you at the next one ~
🍇🍉Tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow! Some final reminders, our full vendor lineup, and just a few of the groups that our vendors are raising money for at our Art Market for Mutual Aid in St. Nicholas park!🌷🍃In addition to our lovely vendors’ wares, we’ll have free hot food, fruit, drinks, pay-as-you-wish clothing, COVID tests and masks, and free toiletries available for everyone in attendance. If you’d like to bring gently-used clothing/accessories or unopened toiletries (lotion, soap, deodorant, shampoo, conditioner), we welcome all donations! All toiletries and clothing not sold or used by the end of our event will be distributed to Bronx Jail Support and other mutual aid organizations.💕💐🪻See you and your five million closest friends tomorrow <3
🍃🥬THIS SATURDAY! 4 MORE DAYS!🌙⭐️Our Art Market for Mutual Aid is falling on a beautiful, sunny day, so show out to check out Ray Atlas, one of our amazing vendors!🎨🖌️They create stickers, patches, paintings, and more to support their friend Aya, a young artist, student, and soon-to-be mother in Gaza.🫒🌷Join us in St. Nicholas to check out their free zines and stickers as well!💐🌻
NEW USERNAME!! Using this occasion to post these beautiful photos by @audreachenphoto for @ratrockmag . Make sure to check out their feature on me by the wonderful @nikaraiffe if you haven’t already!
So incredibly grateful to @designatbarnard for all their support and guidance during my time at Barnard, especially as I wrestled with QR code stencils and cyanotypes this past year. Here are some beautiful pieces from their showcase earlier today. My friends are so inventive and inspiring I am truly so lucky.
I am extremely proud of my friend Ray for her powerful thesis project at Barnard: a cyanotype on a decommissioned flag fabric from the Department of Homeland Security that presents images of people who were killed in ICE Detention Centers since January 2025. Artists reflect the events of their present, and this is exactly what my friend Ray has accomplished to a resounding effect. Armed with a combined Art and Anthropology background, her dedication to human rights causes is so inspiring. The fields of Anthropology and Ethnography have complicated histories mired in systemic racism and social inequities that go back generations, and these remain tethered to their extremely problematic roots. However, a young activist-artist like my friend Ray has come along and is using her creativity to make the world a more inclusive and equitable place.
Congratulations on a great and effective work of political art!
#barnard #politicalart #politicalartist #politicalartwork #socialjustice
From @pal.circlenyc at @theriversideschurch for a screening and discussion of the film “The Encampments”. This event raised $310 total for @aya.shaqalean , an artist, nursing student, and soon-to-be mother in Gaza. Thank you so much for having me!
UPCOMING! My work will be on view in two exhibitions tomorrow night, April 22: Barnard’s visual arts senior thesis show at McCagg Gallery (6-8 pm), and a screening of the film “The Encampments” at Riverside Church (6-9 pm). While “The Encampments” focuses on the student movement, my hope in participating is to center the present needs of people living in Palestine. I will be showing prints by @aya.shaqalean , a young artist and soon-to-be mother struggling to survive in Gaza, and all proceeds from both of our work will go to her fundraiser. All donations from my work at McCagg will benefit families impacted by ICE violence. See you soon!
