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According to the American Immigration Council, the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency is currently holding over in detention facilities, in which instances of physical abuse, malnutrition and forced labor have been . Some commentators consider them .

Now let鈥檚 imagine you鈥檙e an artist who鈥檚 outraged by what鈥檚 happening in these facilities, and you want to do something about it. You want to make anti-ICE art. What do you do?

A neon sign that says 鈥淒eport ICE,鈥� like the one the artist made, might work as protest sign 鈥� and, in fact, it鈥檚 been used that way 鈥� but it鈥檚 lousy art. I wouldn鈥檛 even call it a one-liner, since it鈥檚 not that clever of a line, and Martinez didn鈥檛 come up with it. Has anyone鈥檚 mind ever been changed because they heard a political slogan for the hundredth time or saw it written in neon?

The best anti-ICE artwork I am aware of is 鈥淒etention Nation鈥� by Delilah Montoya, which occupies the last room of the artist鈥檚 retrospective, 鈥淒elilah Montoya: Activating Chicana Resistance,鈥� at the sa国际传媒官网网页入口 Museum. The exhibition runs through May 3.

鈥淒etention Nation鈥� is an information-dense interactive installation that includes a simulated ICE detention cell with a ghostly blue cyanotype image of a detainee鈥檚 body printed onto the sheet of a prison cot. Montoya made this and other cyanotypes representing bodies of detainees and their families with the help of the Texas-based Sin Huellas Artist Collective. The cot is placed against a chain-link fence, and visitors are encouraged to hang handwritten letters of hope on the fence, which the museum will later mail to real detainees.

Nearby, government-issued personal items are arranged on a low table: a meal tray, a thin tube of toothpaste, a pair of imitation Crocs, a single bar of soap and so on. There鈥檚 a booklet, too 鈥� the actual National Detainee Handbook 鈥� which I encourage everyone to pick up and skim through. Under a section titled 鈥淵our Rights,鈥� you鈥檒l find the following Orwellian statement: 鈥淵ou have the right to maintain your personal well-being.鈥� Nothing about human rights or access to a lawyer, but detainees are expected to be responsible for their own happiness, apparently. On another page, you鈥檒l find the question, 鈥淲ill I get paid for my work?鈥� The answer? 鈥淵ou will get at least $1 for each day you work.鈥� That鈥檚 bad enough, but it goes on to explain that some facilities will only pay you for your work after you鈥檝e been released. So, if you perform physical labor every day for an entire year, I guess you can leave the prison with up to $365.

Montoya presented an early version of 鈥淒etention Nation鈥� at the Station Museum of Contemporary Art in Houston in 2015, but she has updated and expanded it for this exhibition in collaboration with the sa国际传媒官网网页入口 Museum鈥檚 community engagement coordinator, Diana Delgado, and a local nonprofit called .

An interactive installation like this is infinitely more effective than a simplistic work of political sloganeering. Montoya uses the principle of mimesis to put the viewers in the detainees鈥� shoes and imagine what it would actually feel like to have our rights stripped away. Such fact-based, unsentimental realism 鈥� like the measured prose of Holocaust survivor Primo Levi 鈥� really does have the potential to change hearts and minds. Montoya also includes concrete action items 鈥� letters we can write, organizations we can join 鈥� which dispel that old, defeatist myth of 鈥淚鈥檓 just one person; what can I do?鈥� Well, there鈥檚 plenty to do, and she gives us options.

Montoya is known primarily as a photographer, but curator Josie Lopez emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of her work. From printmaking to collage to installation art, Montoya uses an array of extra-photographic processes. Even when she engages, seemingly, in 鈥渟traight鈥� photography, such as her portraits of women boxers from the early 2000s, it is clear that her subjects are actively participating in the work, posing knowingly and consciously co-constructing their public image.

Montoya鈥檚 photographs are not 鈥渘eutral documentations,鈥� Shelle S谩nchez, director of the city of sa国际传媒官网网页入口鈥檚 Arts and Culture Department, writes in her foreword to the exhibition catalog, but are 鈥済rounded in collaboration, dialogue and shared experience.鈥� This is an important point, since Montoya has long been mislabeled a documentary photographer.

She is no more a documentarian than the video artist Juan Downey, whose 1979 film 鈥淭he Laughing Alligator,鈥� appears, at first, to be a typical anthropological film about the Indigenous Yanomami tribe in the rainforests of Venezuela. Downey and his family really did live among the Yanomami, but the film he made about living with them is highly self-conscious and theatrical, and it subverts many conventions of anthropological filmmaking. At one point, his subjects point wooden weapons at him, and he points his camera back at them, declaring, in a voiceover, 鈥淭he camera is also a dangerous weapon.鈥�

In the mid-1990s, Montoya produced a series called 鈥淪hooting the Tourist,鈥� which subverts the anthropological gaze of Western tourists who come to watch Indigenous performances in New Mexico and elsewhere. While the tourists gawk at ceremonial dancers and take photos, Montoya turns the tables and photographs them. She then converts these images into ironic postcards. On the back of each one, she prints captions that say things like 鈥淟ooking at the primitive鈥� or 鈥淟ooking at the local color.鈥� Montoya鈥檚 鈥淪hooting the Tourist,鈥� like Downey鈥檚 鈥淭he Laughing Alligator,鈥� is an activist art project that uses humor to critique and subvert the Western colonial gaze.

Many of Montoya鈥檚 photographic series explore mythic and religious figures, such as La Llorona and the Virgin of Guadalupe, which is partly what has caused some viewers and critics to interpret them as straightforward expressions of Chicana/o culture, which they are not. Montoya has consistently questioned cultural norms throughout her career, showing how seemingly benign myths and legends encode gender roles, racial hierarchies and other cultural constructs.

The closest Montoya comes to a straightforward documentary project is the simulated ICE facility we experience in 鈥淒etention Nation.鈥� But even there, Montoya鈥檚 ghostly cyanotype bodies create a poetic surreality that鈥檚 just far enough removed from documentary realism to allow for introspective reflection, and possibly even hope.

鈥淎ctivating Chicana Resistance鈥� is by turns beautiful, humorous and deeply disturbing. But when you look at the full scope of Montoya鈥檚 projects over the decades, what comes through is her consistent authorial voice, which is always curious and socially engaged.

To say that an artist can 鈥渁ctivate resistance鈥� in her audience is a claim that cynics might scoff at 鈥� particularly since 鈥渁ctivation鈥� has become such an empty curatorial buzzword these days 鈥� but, you know what? I think it鈥檚 true. Her work does activate resistance. Most of Montoya鈥檚 projects are collaborative, so by simply doing them, she鈥檚 building community.

On the day of her opening, a standing-room-only crowd came to hear her speak, and many of us stuck around afterwards, wandering slowly through the retrospective and ultimately participating in the 鈥淒etention Nation鈥� activities in the final room. So, yes, I鈥檇 say there鈥檚 a lot of people in New Mexico who are ready and willing to get activated. And unlike a lot of political art that offers nothing but empty slogans or false sentimentality, Montoya has spent decades blazing a path toward true solidarity. If you want to see how to make political art that鈥檚 complex, nuanced and still quite radical, follow her lead.

Logan Royce Beitmen is an arts writer for the sa国际传媒官网网页入口. He covers visual art, music, fashion, theater and more. Reach him at lbeitmen@abqjournal.com or on Instagram at .