Above and Beyond Borders

On March 14, 2019, No Longer Empty, Arts & Democracy, and NOCD-NY hosted Above and Beyond Borders, a webinar with artists and cultural organizers from Chicago, IL, Douglas, AZ and New York, NY who are actively working to envision a life of dignity for immigrants, detainees and prisoners, and individuals who have been violated and rendered invisible.

Featured programs and presenters include: Maria Gaspar’s 96 Acres Project and Radioactive: Stories from Beyond the Wall, M Jenea Sanchez’s Border Arts Corridor, and members of the New Sanctuary Coalition’s art wing. The webinar was facilitated by Raquel de Anda. Participants compiled resources that build on information discussed during the event, which can be found below the video recording. The event was open to everyone.

Above and Beyond Borders Webinar Thursday, March 14, 2019 1pm-2:30pm EST / 10am-11:30am PST Arts & Democracy joins with No Longer Empty and Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts for Above and Beyond Borders. The webinar features presentations on an art program co-created with prisoners at Cook County Jail and neighbors living in its’ vicinity, a collective using the arts to re-envision the US/MX border, and a faith-based organization engaging cultural organizing to build solidarity and support for an immigrant population under threat of deportation in New York City. Featured presenters are: Maria Gaspar, 96 Acres Project and Radioactive: Stories from Beyond the Wall M Jenea Sanchez, Border Arts Corridor Judith Paez, New Sanctuary Coalition Moderated by Raquel de Anda, Director of Public Engagement at No Longer Empty The webinar was held on Zoom. Maria Jenea Sanchez and the Border Arts Corridor (Douglas, AZ) *To speak on her work with the Border Arts Corridor (BAC), a collective dedicated to cultivating arts and cultural programming that explores the complexities of the borderlands so that social borders will fall and bridges materialize. As a person I am aware of my cultural categorization, neither as native Mexicana nor Americana. As an artist, I strive to utilize this nomadic sensibility, by inserting myself between, among, and outside of the status quo of American and Mexican culture. As the sociopolitical climate of the border region remains controversial, I continue the conversation of permeability and how the perception of the actual line of the border can be reimagined. Through drawing, video, installation, performance and photography I render and illustrate contemporary life in the Southwest with a feminist perspective atop a fence that bisects one culture. Maria Gaspar (Chicago, IL) *to Speak about Cook County Jail: The Visible and Invisible The Cook County Jail in Chicago, located at 26th and California in the Little Village Community, is estimated to hold about 10,000 detainees on any given day. As a native of Little Village, I was interested in producing a story that reflects on what it means to live next to one of the largest single-site pre-detention facilities in the country and how the jail, at times, is both visible and invisible to the local community. Judith Páez (New York, NY) *To speak about her work with New Sanctuary Coalition Judith Páez is a Mexican immigrant who came in 1994 with her husband and young baby. They are now the parents of three boys: the oldest is D.A.C.A.; the other two are U.S. citizens. She was a secretary in Mexico and has worked all her life since arriving in the U.S. In the fall of 2016, she came to the New Sanctuary Coalition (NSC) to participate in an action called “Saving Our Souls,” a group of Friends (undocumented immigrants and families) willing to take the risk, despite being undocumented, of submitting deferred action requests at 26 Federal Plaza and conducting news conferences. In 2016 she began volunteering at NSC, helping others with serious immigration issues. She was hired in 2017 as a Finance Assistant. She continues serving as a church deacon and owns her own business. She represents NSC and undocumented immigrants by public speaking to bring a voice for all those still living in the shadows. She is responsible for NSC’s Community Meetings and Clinic orientation to empower Friends to be their best advocate, to share their stories and to learn from each other and become strong. She is the Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) clinic coordinator. She represents NSC in a Pratt Institute Project for the development of new ideas and objects that can serve our affected communities in various aspects. Her dream is to see a world with no borders, abolish ICE and live in a world with equal rights for every single human being to live with dignity.

• No Longer Empty's Outside the Lines: Artists & (Im)migration, a visual resource for artists, cultural organizers and organizations working on themes of immigration.

• Until We are All Free art kit created by Mobilize the Immigrant Vote (MIV), CultureStrike.

• Ecologies of Migrant Care, an initiative of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at New York University.  

• Immigrants Beware! a toolkit by the Center for Urban Pedagogy.  

• New Sanctuary Coalition — "No one can create sanctuary alone. It takes a community. We always need more volunteers because the work is never done. Here is a link to many of the ways you can help." - Judith Páez, New Sanctury Coalition

• 96 Acres Project, a series of site-responsive art projects led by Maria Gaspar about social and restorative justice and the impact of incarceration at the Cook County Jail on Chicago's West Side. Projections, sound event, youth art installation and article about the installations.

• Radioactive: Stories from Beyond the Wall is a series of community-engaged radio/visual broadcasts located between the largest architecture of Chicago's West Side, The Cook County Jail, and the working-class residential area of the Lawndale communities.

• Border Arts Corridor, dedicated to cultivating arts and cultural programming that explores the complexities of the borderlands so that social borders will fall and bridges materialize.

  photo on previous page: Maria Gaspar, Stories from Beyond the Wall, Site Intervention at Cook County Department of Corrections. photo credit: Sarah J. Rhee