Based on the interviews of 5 mothers formerly detained at the Berks family prison, artist Michelle Angela Ortiz has created 8 large-scale public art installations highlighting the messages and portraits of the mothers and their children. All eight installations will be placed in Harrisburg which includes 40′ billboards, bus shelters, an 88′ long painted image installed on the Capitol steps, and 35′ mural in Allison Hill. The installations will be up from October 26th through November 18th. You can see the map of all the sites here.
Read more about the project:
Artist Michelle Angela Ortiz to Cover PA Capitol Steps with Images and Words of Detained Immigrant Mothers
Stage two of her “Familias Separadas” project will also include billboards, bus shelters, and a mural in the immigrant community
HARRISBURG – Award-winning visual artist and muralist Michelle Angela Ortiz will unveil a set of stunning large-scale public art installations—including an 88-foot-long mural on the steps of the state capitol building—in and around the Pennsylvania capital city of Harrisburg that feature the images and words of undocumented immigrant mothers who were imprisoned with their children at the Berks County Family Detention Center for nearly two years.
Oritz is unveiling these installations, the next phase of her groundbreaking “Familias Separadas” project, during the election season to call voters’ and political leaders’ attention to the trauma that immigrant detention inflicts on families. The artist has been working with the formerly detained mothers and children for over a year to capture their stories and pain.
“The goal of this project is to amplify the stories of the families affected by detention and deportation in ways that people can connect with, so that they can empathize with the families and then channel that energy into action,” Ortiz said. “I hope to use this creative process to build on the existing power of the mothers, so that people can see that they are not victims but full, whole, resilient human beings that are trying to heal from the trauma of being detained with their children.”
The mothers featured are some of the several women with young children who were held for nearly two years at Berks, which is one of only three permanent family prisons for immigrant families in the country. Despite being held up as a “model” by proponents of immigrant
detention, the center has amassed a record of human rights violations. The federal government, under intense legal and public pressure to stop forcibly removing immigrant children from their families, recently announced its intention to keep children with their parents in detention indefinitely, expanding and replicating facilities like Berks. Ortiz’s main community partner, the Shut Down Berks Coalition has been fighting to close down the Berks family prison for three years.
Ortiz’s artwork will include a huge vinyl applique on the capitol building steps (approximately 88 feet by 20 feet), three large billboards in and around the city, three large bus shelter displays near the capitol building, and a 35-foot-high painted mural in Harrisburg’s immigrant neighborhood of Allison Hill. The mural was created with the participation of youth from local faith-based, immigrant, and Latino organizations that include MILPA, bcmPEACE, and LHACC.
All of the artwork will use a common design, combining photos and painted images of the detained mothers with quotations from them about the effect prolonged detention had on them and their children.
“My son was the only one that gave me strength,” says one quote. “We left to save my life,” says another.
“When the mothers and I were able to connect, we were able together to create a space for them to express their thoughts and reveal how they wanted to tell their own stories,” Ortiz said. “These moments were vital, reminding them of their strength, especially as they navigate through unjust systems that continue to devalue their existence.”
Installation will begin at the capitol steps on Wednesday, Oct 24 at 8 a.m. and will run 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily through Friday October 26. Final images will be fully complete for viewing by October 29. The Shut Down Berks Coalition is planning a press event at the capitol steps framing the artwork for November 3.
Videos of the mothers speaking in their own words will also be released online as the art is unveiled, starting October 25. The women, many of whom are living in the U.S. in fear of deportation back to dangerous situations in their origin countries, are represented under pseudonyms. Excerpts and full transcripts of Ortiz’s interviews with them are also available in English or Spanish.
Locations of the installations are marked on this google map here. For more details on the artwork, to interview Ortiz, arrange an opportunity to film or photograph Ortiz working on the installations, receive copies of the interview transcripts with the mothers, or get connected to some of the undocumented women featured in the artwork, please contact the project through one of its press representatives named above. Read more about the project at Ortiz’ website here.
Michelle Angela Ortiz is a visual artist, muralist and community arts educator who has won accolades for her use of art as a vehicle to represent people and communities whose histories are often lost or co-opted. Through painting, printmaking, and community arts practices, her work tells stories using richly crafted and emotive imagery to claim and transform spaces into a visual affirmation that reveals the strength and spirit of the community. She has designed and created over 50 large-scale public works nationally and internationally. Since 2008, Ortiz has led community building and art for social change public art projects both independently in Costa
Rica and Ecuador and through the United States Embassy as a Cultural Envoy in Fiji, Mexico, Argentina, Spain, Venezuela, and Honduras. In Cuba, she completed the first U.S. State funded public art project since the re-opening of the United States Embassy in Havana in 2015. Ortiz is a 2018 PEW Fellow, a Rauschenberg Foundation Artist as Activist Fellow, a Kennedy Center Citizen Artist National Fellow, and a Santa Fe Art Institute Equal Justice Resident Artist. In 2016, she received the Americans for the Arts’ Public Art Year in Review Award which honors outstanding public arts projects in the nation. She is also fellow of the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture Fund for the Arts (2011), recipient of the Leeway Foundation Transformation Award (2008) and Art & Change Grant (2013, 2012 & 2006.) Read more about her at http://www.michelleangela.com/.
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