Life in Shadows: The Border as Carceral Geography
6PM
Life in Shadows: The Border as Carceral Geography co-curated with Juan Ortiz will center on the border as a geographic and discursive site.
The Center is excited to announce “Life in Shadows: The Border as Carceral Geography,” a symposium presented with Pioneer Works and co-curated with Juan Ortiz, an inaugural Center Fellow in 2017, a 2026 Galaxy Gives Fellow and the Founder of Casa Carmelita. The symposium will feature a keynote address by Ortiz, two panels moderated by Céline Semaan and Danielle Wu featuring Frank Blazquez, Luis Camnitzer, Insha Rahman, Abraham Paulos, Juana Valdés, and Victor “Marka27” Quiñonez; and a closing performance by Laura Ortman. Food will be provided by Maya Taqueria. “Life in Shadows” is an opportunity to explore the interconnectedness between the carceral system and the United States’ border and immigration system.
The symposium will consider the border as both a place and an idea—as a geographic and discursive site—that is maintained through mechanisms of surveillance, displacement and other violences. Panelists will explore how the border functions as one of the country’s many carceral structures and machinations, interrupting human relations and movements for the project of nationhood. By breaking down the binary ways of thinking about incarceration and immigration, the symposium aims to reveal the ways in which these two systems are functionally one and the same.