echoes – cartographies of refuge and containment

Abstract

echoes is a series of performance meditations that explores cartographies of refuge and containment of Southeast Asian Americans facing deportation. This photo essay features two iterations of echoes, from the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago during the “Groundings” exhibition and the defibrillator gallery for the “Upheavals” performance festival in 2019. echoes challenges the carceral logics that undergird humanitarian aid after war and the criminalization of refugees through experiments with movement, sound, light, breath, and symbolic objects used in death ceremonies, refugee rescues, detention centers, and patriotic celebrations. For the first iteration, I sew myself into moving sculptures, experimenting with white fabric, or khăn tang, used in Vietnamese death ceremonies. The fabric’s measurements are based on the dimensions of detention center cells across the U.S. The thread is from the flags of countries that have signed repatriation agreements with the U.S., which expedites deportation. In the second iteration, I cover my body with a silver mylar blanket (“NASA blankets”) used in refugee rescue missions and detention centers, blocking/reflecting the light from light projections through explorations with muscular contractions and breathwork. This photo essay captures a study of gestures of mourning and resistance within and through these thresholds of confinement.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical refugee studies
• minoritarian performance
• carceral aesthetics
• deportation/detention
• liminality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 “Organized abandonment” is a concept abolitionist and Black feminist geographer, Ruth Wilson Gilmore discusses in her interview with The Intercept. Gilmore explains, “Organized abandonment has happened throughout the country, in urban and rural contexts, for more than 40 years, we see that as people have lost the ability to keep their individual selves, their households, and their communities together with adequate income, clean water, reasonable air, reliable shelter, and transportation and communication infrastructure … . what’s risen in the crevices of this cracked foundation of security has been policing and prison” (Gilmore 2020).

2 The concept of “undrowned” is deeply inspired by and draws directly from Black feminist poet and scholar Alexis Pauline Gumb's (2020) latest book, Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals. A beautiful synchronicity between our work calling upon whales as metaphor and teacher for survival against colonial and imperial violence.