Intervention - Aileen Herrera Ojeda

For my midterm intervention I wanted to focus on the topic of immigration and the recent treatment that the Latino community in the United States is facing. Immigration has always been a big topic of discussion, whether negative or positive, but especially with the rise of Trump and his MAGA agenda it has become a big talking point showing many people's racist and ignorant side. This hateful rhetoric not only targets immigrants but anyone who is not white passing, whether that be appearance wise or language wise. In this administration it is not about immigration or who came into the country "the right way", it was always about racism. Similar to the quote from, "An Introduction to Activist Art" by Stefanie Graf, “The artist once said that her biggest inspiration was injustice in the world.”, I have been more aware about what is going on politically, what executive orders are in the talks or passed, and especially the derogatory things that have been said, and none of it has sat right with me, which led to my interest in the class and this topic. 

I was heavily inspired by the "UndocuBus" which was an old bus that was painted with monarch butterflies and taken on a road trip around the Southern United States, where they would protest anti-immigration laws around 2012. I also took inspiration from a lot of the protests that have been shared online, and the signs that individuals have made and brought to those protests. 

 

In this design I wanted to include a butterfly, the monarch butterfly being a beautiful symbol of migration. In our text, "The Art of Activism" the author states, "“Undocubus activists forged an association between human immigration and a natural and majestic migration, reframing the image of a population unjustly feared and routinely degraded. Who, after all, can be enraged at a butterfly?” (Duncombe, Lambert, 22).  I added some filters on it to give the butterfly a more inverted effect. At first it was a thermal effect, but I wanted to word to stand out more than the butterfly, since the message is the main takeaway from the poster. I used several different butterflies to show the diverseness within immigration. Overall, I wanted to keep it simple and straight to the point in order for it to be engaging and eye catching. I posted these posters around the art building boards; while doing so I did see some people being interested as to what I was putting up and glancing at the message.