Calling Artists to Join the Movement for Immigrant Justice – Karen Hu, MFA Printmaking ’27

Over the past few weeks, I have been working on an art open call at Alliance to Mobilize Our Resistance (AMOR). My goals for this work were to: a) learn the practical skills to create an open call and plan for a collection of artworks, b) understand the different ways that people approach art open calls and why different decisions are made, and c) apply this by working with AMOR to understand how an open call could align with the needs and work of the organization in a way that makes sense and could further their future work.

So far, I explored how artists and artwork can support the mass movement work that AMOR does through the Deportation Defense Network (DDN) in RI. The Deportation Defense Network is a network of volunteers that rapidly responds to ICE terror in our neighborhood. Through a whatsapp alerts channel, verified ICE sightings are reported to the community and volunteer and community members protest, outreach to the neighbors, and share know your rights information. DDN also operates a hotline (401-675-1414), which you can call to report activity that could affect your neighbors, and you never have to identify yourself. Learning more about the particular intentions of the network, to build a mass movement against ICE terror, was central to deciding the ways we could bring artists in to support this movement.

We spent time deciding on the specifics: the submission and evaluation timeline, and whether there would be a celebratory or revealing event at the end. One thing that was really important was deciding on the prompts to center the work of the DDN and connect with artists who resonated with this work. In the end, we decided on these prompts:

1. ¡El pueblo, unido, jamas sera vencido! 
2. ¡Solo El Pueblo salva el pueblo!
3. Abolish ICE!
4. ICE out of RI!
5. Mobilize, organize, and build
6. Migrar es un derecho 

I started to work on the post for the art open call:

Throughout this work, a common theme has emerged: when working within the context of a movement intended to build collective power to end state violence, there is always an intention to bring people in, build with them along our collective unity, and think about the long-term struggle.

The number to the Deportation Defense Network hotline is 401-675-1414. I am also attaching the qr code to the whatsapp alerts channel. We are all needed in this movement against ICE terror!