 Next up, we have, is this working? Well, Tanya Bruguera, Murad Awade, and Felipe Beza talking about art utile, the idea of art as utility, as useful, as something that we can use in our day-to-day living, and actually invoke change. In this case, particularly change in relationship to communities at risk, and migrant communities in particular. Please help me in welcoming Tanya, Murad, and Felipe. Good evening, everyone. How are you guys enjoying the Brooklyn Conference so far? So I'm a Brooklyn native. And in Brooklyn, we're louder than that. And I'm assuming most of you are, too. So how are you enjoying the Brooklyn Conference so far? So my name is Murad Awade. I am the vice president of advocacy at the New York Immigration Coalition. We're an organization that brings together and convenes immigrant serving and immigrant led organizations across the state of New York. We have over 200 members in our great state. We are the largest immigrant rights coalition in the nation. And as you may have noticed, as you may have noticed, we've been slightly busy this year. And one thing that has been ever apparent to me is that we will continue to be busy. And we don't see any relief in sight until we unite as a people and actually fight the good fight all together. So our conversation here today is more so. It's not going to be really moderated. But it's a conversation around how we can come together. Using art as a tool in our form of resistance. And resistance may mean something else to someone else. But at the end of the day, it's about fighting back. So with that, I'd like to just contextualize the work that we've been doing very quickly from the second that our current president was elected. We organized mass mobilizations across New York and started to fight back against this anti-immigrant agenda. Shortly after signing the Muslim ban this past January, we mobilized thousands of people to JFK airport and fought back and brought out over 1,000 lawyers who provided free legal services to hundreds of people from over 20 Muslim majority countries. So when we're talking about how do you use your tool and your skill as an act of resistance, lawyers use their act of resistance at that moment. Their skills were their act of resistance. And having them stationed in the airport for nine whole days was really amazing to see the might of people coming together. We were successful in fighting it back the first time, the second time, and the third time. And we'll continue to be successful only because it is wrong. And at the end of the day, what is wrong will always fail. And it may seem like a very simple thing. What's wrong will fail. But we need to keep reminding ourselves that because there's a confusion about what's wrong and what's right. Currently, we're fighting against Trump's anti-dreamer agenda right now. And he rescinded DAC on September 5th. And on March 5th, every single day after March 5th, 1,100 dreamers will lose their protected status. It's not even a status. It's a category, which means that they won't even, they won't be a target for deportation. And to be that heartless is beyond me, right? So we're talking about how do we stand up and fight back? And how do we use the tools that you all come together with in doing that? So I'm going to kick it off to Tanya, who's going to start talking about her view of what's happening. I think you summarized it really well. And being an artist next to you is very humbling. But I think as an artist, which is the terrain we have to act, I feel that we are equipped to understand systems. And we are also equipped to understand relationships that are not evident. But also we are equipped to enact before things happen, the future that we want. And I think we can create spaces where we can invite others to leave the moment that is not there yet, but we know it's going to come. And I think this is something that we can do. But also as an artist advocating for art as a tool, I also want to recommend some strategies that we use sometime in the Art de Util group, which is to be legal. And legal is a Spanish word. Get used to it. You should have more foreign words in your art vocabulary. And legal means something that the law has not yet conceived. So I think that's something the artist can do. The artist can imagine not only loophole, but even things that the people who are regulating our life now have not even conceived yet. And those are the spaces in which we can enter and gain some terrain. Another thing that we can do is trying to understand the spaces of ignorance of the people who are in power right now. These are also places that we can occupy by making sure that the language is not being reduced to good and bad, tremendous and horrible, but making sure that we defend the right for complexity through the work we do. And the other thing in terms of immigration, and I'm saying this in guilt, in a way, I think immigrants don't want to be represented. So I stopped representing immigrants. Immigrants want the rights. And how can we give the rights or help them to advance in the rights through art? It's not by we need to hear stories, and the stories are very important, but I think we know what is going on. We don't need another person telling us what's going to happen with their life. We need our artistic institutions to step in and start defending immigrants. And I want to propose something, which is something I've been working on, is trying to see if museums, foundations, the specific museums, since we are in one, can become sanctuary for immigrants. I know when people say sanctuary, people freaked out, because the image is that people living in the museum, how we're going to feed them, the bathroom. What we're saying is a commitment by the museum to not collaborate with ICE, but also a commitment of the museums to, in their demographic, African-American, gay woman, to put on documented artists. We need to start adding to those statistics how many undocumented artists are in your shows. That's my point. Yeah, well, as an artist, I think I've always battled that, how to use my art or my practice as a tool. And we had talked earlier that I have done both. I mean, I don't call myself an activist, but I've put my body on the line. I've put myself in deportation in order to find cases within detention centers. And that's how I feel. I mean, I feel like through art, yeah, there's a point that it could cultivate a conversation, which has been happening lately a lot. I'm in a graduate program right now, and there's a lot of teaching that I'm doing. And it's also shocking to know that a lot of people don't know what undocumented people could do and cannot do. They thought I voted, which a lot of people think a lot of undocumented people voted. But I want to thank you both. And obviously, I was telling Tanya that I usually say no to these kind of panels because there's a specific agenda of tell your story, the poor narrative of poor immigrant. And obviously, the story is already out there, and we know already. You don't need to know that. I don't want to romanticize being undocumented, but we learn to survive under these circumstances. And I learned that from my parents, how to navigate systems. When we're sick, how do you get some kind of care? And I've done that. I've gotten through where I am now, not because the resources have been there, but I've been finding my way through those resources and getting them, but also with my community, in a sense. But I also have a good point that I also want to point out is that I'm glad I'm in the panel, and I'm having a documented voice on the panel because in a lot of situations, we have people who are not embodying those experiences talk on behalf of us. So that's a bit tricky. But I do agree with you that institutions should be daring and basically help out or invest in immigrant artists and undocumented artists. How can we help out? I think a lot of it is that we actually don't have a lot of resources. And a lot of resources that are out there are for citizens, basically. So it's like how to, I mean, through my application process for graduate school, I knew I was going to have a comeback. How do I navigate that? But it's also like, no, I belong here. I have a right to be here. I'm not taking someone's space. It's like, I belong in that spot. And I got this back because I deserve it. But yeah, I mean, I think it's a back and forth between my work. And obviously, that's what I do with my own work. But also, there's also a limit to what I can do with my work. So it's like putting my body on the line. And I mean, obviously, I have nothing to lose. I'm not doing this for myself, but for my parents. Who ultimately, like, if DACA does happen and something gets actually worked out, a lot of people are going to be thrown under the bus. And those are my parents. But that goes into this good immigrant, bad immigrant narrative that happens within undocumented communities about, I have the right to be here because I went through school. I did this. I was never arrested. I don't know, it's a very dark time. I don't want to also romanticize that. It's awesome being undocumented. But you learn to sort of cope with that. You learn to, I think for me, an eye-opener was when I went to Alabama and it's like, why would you stay here? But it's like, they learn to cope with that situation. They learn to survive and navigate that system, which I could not do. My fear for me means very different from my fear from someone. I mean, in Buffalo, New York, we were just talking about that. One aspect that I think that we've actually have been trying to battle back is the good immigrant, bad immigrant narrative. And when we're looking at immigration as a whole, we have 11 million people in the United States who are undocumented. Of which, recently, when DACA was rescinded, people who were gonna be impacted and who actually applied for DACA was about 800,000 people. Then you have temporary detected status, which is a status that is given to people who are undocumented in the United States, who come from countries, where there's natural disaster or conflict, and folks who have TPS amount to about 400, 450,000 people in the U.S. So when we're talking about these different categories of folks who have some sort of status, we tend to forget that the vast majority of people who are undocumented in the U.S. don't have a pathway to getting any form of status. So my aspect of coming to this work is I come from a Palestinian family. My parents came to the U.S. had no supportive services, had a navigated system, and learned how to navigate the system on their own. And when they did that, it instilled a form of adaptability in us. And it was something that's very unique to the immigrant experience in the U.S. and I think that it comes with the first generation folks who actually see and have to play that translator role, the person who fills out the forms for their parents' health insurance, and all these different little tidbits that folks, like my son would never have to do that for me, right? But we had to assume that role for our family. And that's an experience that I'm kind of upset he won't have to do, because not that I want him to do it because I did it, but I think that it taught me so much about systems in itself. And one aspect that I think we are trying, all three of us to say, is how can artists and folks in the art world, and I'm sorry about the echo, I'm not sure why that's happening, can actually, what can you do to show up? And Tanya told us museums need to start thinking about how they can become sanctuaries, not working with federal immigration authorities to put people first before your spaces, and that may be uncomfortable. And that's fine, because we're living in very uncomfortable times. So if you are comfortable right now, you shouldn't be. Okay. And the other piece is making a real diligent effort to make sure you're reaching out and lifting up undocumented voices. So I'm not here to talk to you because I am not undocumented, and I don't know that lived experience. I am the child of immigrants in this country, and I don't want to speak for anyone but myself, but the fact of the matter is that sometimes when allies come into the space, it seems as if they are taking on the role or the experience of the other person, and that's not really the role of an ally. Allyship to me means showing up. You can retweet, you can like, you can share a Facebook post. That's not showing up. If that's your form of resistance, I'm going to respectfully decline your allyship because at the end of the day, we need people to show up. Yeah. You, the pal is real. So showing up and putting your bodies on the line is a real big ask, but that is the ask that we're making of you today and looking at the bigger picture. So if I were to get arrested, I'd end up getting put through processing, get a desk appearance ticket and have to show up if I had the civil disobedience and block traffic. Someone who is someone who has status or someone who doesn't have status, that is not their case, right? So they are literally putting their lives on the line when they take that small step of civil disobedience. So we have more people who are our allies who should be stepping up and doing that and thinking about different ways that you can contribute to the resistance. So how are you using your art to look at the big picture and look at the macro view of what's happening and how do you educate other people in your field? How do you educate folks who don't look like or are immigrants and how does that work? And I don't have a solution to that because I'm not an artist. I know you are and can figure it out. So I wrote on my hand notes. What did you write on that? So what are other things that people can do right now to try to elevate and lift up immigrants, documented or undocumented? And I'm talking from a documented point of view. Temporary because I have to renew my green card. But I think from the art point of view, let's say translating what you just say maybe for art context. The way I see it is to give away your space for others. You should never speak for them. Just give them your privilege. Share the privilege with them. For example, make sure that when you are invited to a project, I recently was invited to a project to say, oh, an immigrant group is going to sell it and I was immediately like red flags. And I say, I want to talk to people in that group. I went to a lawyer and say, I want an amendment to my contract that say that these immigrants are going to be paid the same day artists are being paid. And this is the kind of concrete actions we need to do. When you're going to talk about immigration, make sure that the person next to you is the person who have the experience and he's talking for himself, not you talking for them. So I think we can do a lot. For example, in San Francisco, we just did an event with the cultural strike where we did the whole day for undocumented artists to have the chance to talk to curators. Curators who would never go to their studios, curators who don't care about undocumented immigrants who are artists. And we made sure that that day, these artists had the chance to show their work to these professionals. So they are actually available on their landscape of potential people for shows, you know? So I think we can do a lot with very little, you know? And we are all fucked up. So don't worry, you know? And yeah, the other thing I think we have to do is to, I'm very nervous because I see a tendency to personalize the problem with the abuser in chief, the racist in chief. And I think we need to understand that as a system. And as artists, we can crack the system. So let's try to crack the system instead of complaining about the raper in chief. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess I'll be talking from an undocumented point of view. I think what could be done directly is investing in the work of undocumented migrant artists. And not just me, but if you want to know, there's a bunch of lists, I mean, they're out there. And given us access to residencies, you know, if anybody here is part of a residency program, like giving an access to that or making a fellowship for undocumented artists. And obviously, let us be at the forefront, you know? I feel like there are a lot of artists who work around these issues or are not directly being impacted. So what does that mean? But I think directly what an institution could do is invest in those artists. And I think that's what we need. But also I think there's a sort of speculation of what an undocumented art looks like. And that's what I'm having right now during my program where I'm not meeting those sort of like, you know, and that's like another conversation. But yeah, just giving us a space. Not just showcase, but to make. And I think my last point is that this event, this panel shouldn't just be like a one transactional event, you know, that there should be something happening after this, you know, that we maintain touch and work with obviously we are somehow connected in the work we do, but also keeping on going that conversation, because I feel like in the panels where I've been going, like there's a lot of touch and nothing happens and it's just for the event. And so that's why I stopped saying no, but I said yes, because I was interested in having this kind of conversation of what can we do instead of like sharing my immigrant story, in a sense. And I think we are getting down to the nitty-gritty on our timeframe. So just with the show, hey, Shant, show of hands. How many folks have actually participated in some form of protest in the past 10 months? Okay, so it's like almost the entire room. How many folks have like tried to figure out how to donate and support and lift immigrant organizations at the show of hands, not that I'm trying to shame anyone. Okay, so how many people actually try to get some of their family and friends to do the same? We can do better. And that's, you know, we can do so much ourselves, but we need to make sure that we're actually engaging our communities. And from what we saw in the past election, you know, I'm not gonna talk about too many of the specifics of what actually occurred on election day, or who voted for who, but we've seen a huge, huge reemergence of white supremacy in the United States. And for our folks in the audience, I think that it's incumbent on folks to challenge that. And white supremacy comes in a whole bunch of different forms, which I don't think we have enough time to talk about right now, but we do have a commander in chief who is a white supremacist at the end of the day. Because I've never heard or seen a Nazi who is a good person. Because, you know, yeah. So I think the point that I'm trying to make is that you all have a role to play. And if you choose to take up that role and do it. So there's a number of different things that you heard, and I'm just gonna try to quickly summarize it. A, contact your museums, the places you visit, your art centers, if you're a curator, invest in immigrant communities. Invest in providing and lifting up immigrant artists. That is something that is extremely critical. Look at how you can turn your spaces into sanctuary spaces. And I think that that's something I've actually, and I do immigration work and I've not heard anyone say a museum as a sanctuary space, but I think that that's an amazing idea. And the things about where people are gonna use the bathroom and like sleep, those things can get figured out because when it comes down to life and death, I wanna help the person live. And in most chances when people are getting detained and deported, they're being deported back to their death. So, and that's not me just being hyperball. It's like the reality that we're living in right now. So you have like less than a minute. You guys wanna end on any uplifting words since I was just really depressing. Mine is not very uplifting, perfect. No, I just want to make sure that everybody can check with themselves how you contribute with racism and discrimination to undocumented artists, even using categories like aesthetic, you know, quality of the work. And we need to open up our aesthetic, the, yeah, the song, yeah. To include things that we don't understand. To include things that we are not sure what it is yet. We don't need to always put in our spectrum of good aesthetics the things that have been already proven by Europe 300 years ago or 500 years, like we need to be, we don't need to wait 60 years to understand that the work that some people are doing today is good. Now is when you need to support that project, those projects. Yeah. But I think also besides investing in undocumented artists, I think there's a lot of talks in today and sitting at the table, having that seat at the table, not just the seat at the table, but being also a part of the curators in the museum, being also institutions, faculty, it brings different, it changes a lot. I feel also besides the investment in financial tourism, in undocumented artists, but also showcasing I feel that needs to happen. But we should also be included in many different conversations. One little thing. I remember that a few years ago, like four years ago, we invited an artist to a show we were doing because having the name of that museum in his curriculum make him available for all one visa. So you have power, you can make things change. And unfortunately at this point, we're out of time. But I want to echo something that Felipe said two seconds ago. And we're not talking about just having one seat at the table. We need a few seats at the table. So just being cognizant of your privilege at that moment to make sure that you are being inclusive in your actions and not just in your words is critically important. And with that, I want to thank you all for coming out today. Because at the end of the day, I really do believe that we are going to win because if we fight, we will win. So thank you all. Enjoy the conference.