Above and Beyond Borders

On March 14, 2019, No Longer Empty, Arts & Democracy, and NOCD-NY hosted Above and Beyond Borders, a webinar with artists and cultural organizers from Chicago, IL, Douglas, AZ and New York, NY who are actively working to envision a life of dignity for immigrants, detainees and prisoners, and individuals who have been violated and rendered invisible.

Featured programs and presenters include: Maria Gaspar’s 96 Acres Project and Radioactive: Stories from Beyond the Wall, M Jenea Sanchez’s Border Arts Corridor, and members of the New Sanctuary Coalition’s art wing. The webinar was facilitated by Raquel de Anda. Participants compiled resources that build on information discussed during the event, which can be found below the video recording.

  • No Longer Empty's Outside the Lines: Artists & (Im)migration, a visual resource for artists, cultural organizers and organizations working on themes of immigration.

  • Until We are All Free art kit created by Mobilize the Immigrant Vote (MIV), CultureStrike.

  • Ecologies of Migrant Care, an initiative of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at New York University.  

  • Immigrants Beware! a toolkit by the Center for Urban Pedagogy.  

  • New Sanctuary Coalition — "No one can create sanctuary alone. It takes a community. We always need more volunteers because the work is never done. Here is a link to many of the ways you can help." - Judith Páez, New Sanctury Coalition

  • 96 Acres Project, a series of site-responsive art projects led by Maria Gaspar about social and restorative justice and the impact of incarceration at the Cook County Jail on Chicago's West Side. Projectionssound eventyouth art installation and article about the installations.

  • Radioactive: Stories from Beyond the Wall is a series of community-engaged radio/visual broadcasts located between the largest architecture of Chicago's West Side, The Cook County Jail, and the working-class residential area of the Lawndale communities.

  • Border Arts Corridor, dedicated to cultivating arts and cultural programming that explores the complexities of the borderlands so that social borders will fall and bridges materialize.


    photo on prevous page: Maria Gaspar, Stories from Beyond the Wall, Site Intervention at Cook County Department of Corrections. photo credit: Sarah J. Rhee