Borders: On Immigration, Invisible Lines + Indigenous Rights with george emilio sanchez on Monday, May 9, 2022, 6:00-7:30pm EST
Our next At the Table: Dialogue + Art will be held on Monday, May 9th from 6:00-7:30 PM EST via Zoom. We’ll be joined by guest artist george emilio sanchez in a discussion surrounding Borders: On Immigration, Invisible Lines, and Indigenous Rights. If you are interested in joining, please email info@moreart.org or DM us on Instagram at @moreartnyc. The conversation is open to everyone who is interested and no expertise on the topic is necessary to participate.
Read below for some context for this discussion of Borders: On Immigration, Invisible Lines, and Indigenous Rights.
New York City, marked by the Statue of Liberty and the dense history of Ellis Island, sits on the traditional, unceded lands of the Lenni-Lenape people, known as Lenapehoking. Here many citizens face the financial toil and emotional uncertainty of immigration and visa processes, while countless others live in fear that their undocumented status will leave them uprooted and criminalized. De-facto red-lining continues to leave Black and POC communities at a disadvantage, and ownership of land disputes have left countless others homeless and evicted. Political tensions around borders and who controls them hang over the heads of all citizens, documented or otherwise. All are welcome to join More Art in conversation around issues of immigration, invisible lines, borders, and how communities work with and against them for the common good.
A performance artist, writer and social justice activist, george emilio sanchez recently premiered his new solo performance work, In the Court of the Conqueror, at Abrons Arts Center in March 2022. This new work was done in collaboration with visual artist Patty Ortiz. The performance revolves around the 200 year-old history of Supreme Court rulings that have diminished the Tribal Sovereignty of Native Nations in the U.S. The piece also parallels sanchez’ upbringing in an Ecuadorian immigrant household navigating generational trauma related to indigenous identity. This new work will tour to three states this spring and will tour nationally in 2022-23. In the Court of the Conqueror is the second installment of his performance series, “Performing the Constitution.” sanchez was named the Keith Haring Artist Fellow at The MacDowell in 2021, and has served as a Social Practice Artist-in-Residence at Abrons Arts Center since 2017. For the past 15 years he has also served as the Performance Director for Emergenyc, a program that explores the intersection of arts and activism. He teaches at the City University of New York’s College of Staten Island.
About At The Table: Dialogue + Art
More Art has been hosting At the Table: Dialogue + Art—intimate, salon-style conversations with 10 participants—with our community since 2019. Over the course of 2022, we will be addressing concepts related to gates and borders, physical and imaginary, including, but not limited to, mass incarceration, criminal justice reform, policing, gated communities, immigration, border security, and COVID-related barriers in anticipation of Fred Wilson’s project “Mind Forged Manacles/Manacle Forged Minds” opening in downtown Brooklyn on June 21, 2022. This spring we will hold a series of three At The Table conversations titled Gates, Borders, Barriers, respectively addressing Mass Incarceration, Immigration, and Gender Barriers.