SO (SEW) AMERICA CARES, A SOCIAL ART PROJECT BY AURORA MOLINA THAT INTERWEAVES PUBLIC SPHERES
Cuban artist Aurora Molina is presenting with Bernice Steimbaum Gallery a participatory project with a commitment to raise awareness about the lives of the children separated from their parents at the border. All the faces stitched together to strengthen the very fabric of our own society.
In 2018 a Zero Tolerance immigration policy was announced, requiring that all families who cross the border shall not only be separated but also charged in federal court with the misdemeanor crime of illegal entry. This Project’s mission is to advocate for these children and to extend an invitation to anyone who would like to participate. Thread by thread, fiber by fiber, a participating community will increase its understanding of the circumstances of these children who never asked to be illegal aliens. The project consists of 10 different faces that will be repeated 100 times each to add 1000 faces. The faces had been laser etched on raw canvas to allow the participant to use any kind of thread, yarn, wool, fabric, paint etc. So (sew) America Cares has a plan: to "sew" them back, to never allow these children to be lost again, to create a quilt of 1000 faces representing a portion of these children.
According to Molina: "We cannot allow these traumatized children to disappear and in time, be forgotten. People are encouraged to stitch, sew, knit, knot, crochet, embroider, or braid these drawings so as to symbolically recover these children’s faces and lives again. So (sew) America Cares is an international call for people to participate and raise awareness as to the consequences of this immigration policy and its devastating effect on children. As a citizen, artist, mother and a child that suffered being separated from my family for eight years, I am concerned about the hundreds of separated children across our country.”
Aurora Molina's Sewing Kits raise awareness about the consequences of the Family Separation Crisis. These kits vary in portraying ten different children's' faces that Aurora photographed at a detention center. Each portrait will come with a “how-to” kit which will house embroidery thread, embroidery hoop, embroidery needle, and some suggestions for embroidery stitches, as well as information on Americans for Immigrant Justice.
Kits can be purchased for $25 at Bernice Steinbaum Gallery. All proceeds go directly to support AI Justice, an organization that provides vital legal services to vulnerable immigrants who would otherwise go without representation.
