Activists Unveil 24-Foot Quilt Honoring 11,000 Disappeared By ICE

(MENAFN- USA Art News) Activists unfurled a 24-foot-long quilt at the Minnesota State Capitol on Tuesday, September 22, to protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) violence. Titled“Stolen Neighbors,” the quilt comprises 11,000 individual patches, each representing someone who disappeared due to ICE actions in the state. Dozens of volunteers spent five months stitching the artwork together.

Owen Lubozynski, a member of the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC), told Hyperallergic that discussions with fellow activists about maintaining public and lawmaker engagement after Operation Metro Surge inspired the project. This initiative, a deployment of over 3,000 Minnesotan officers and ICE agents during the past year under President Trump, led to violent incidents. ICE agents shot three individuals; Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti died on camera while protesting ICE in the Twin Cities, and Venezuelan immigrant Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis survived a leg wound.

Lubozynski stated:“We wanted to resist a return to normalcy while Minnesotans were still being quietly terrorized. I thought one way to do that would be to create a visual representation of every stolen neighbor, one that was impossible to ignore.”

Although MIRAC members initially planned to display the quilt from the mezzanine, they realized its length could interfere with light fixtures. Inside the Capitol, they slowly unfolded it horizontally across the rotunda floor, chanting“stand up, fight back” as supporters in inflatable frog suits stood nearby and a few representatives observed from a balcony.

Source: Hyperallergic

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