Portfolio for Marissa Gutiérrez-Vicario: January 2011

Storage, Close-Up

It was estimated that by the end of 2007, nearly 67 million individuals were forcibly displaced from their homes. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the IRC, and African Refuge are some of the many organizations that provide services for refugees throughout the world, including those in NYC.

Walking along the streets in NYC you are continuously bombarded with signs advertising storage units. On the subway, on billboards, in newspapers. Public Storage, Manhattan Mini-Storage, American Self-Storage, Storage Deluxe. We own so many things that we are incapable of fitting it all in our own spaces. In fact, we actually pay to store it somewhere else -- an extension of ourselves somewhere else mixed in with extensions of the lives of others, all in one public area.

Storage is the opposite of the idea, an installation piece that focuses on refugees, from Pakistan to Colombia. It is designed as a faux storage unit, holding only those items that a refugee takes with them when forcibly displaced from their home, objects that are carried necessary for survival and grabbed within a moment’s notice.

Part of Art for Change's Hacia Afuera group exhibition
Photo courtesy of: Erika Sosa Klein

Storage

Photo courtesy of: Harry Jean-Jankins

Las Mujeres de las Sombras

Hidden behind the bright, flashing lights, the colorful billboards, and the everyday busy hubbub of the enormous city that we live in, a dirty secret exists. In the dark corners of New York City, a profitable industry thrives: the world of sexual trafficking of over 20,000 women from dozens of countries across the globe. In fact, the United States is considered as the “second highest destination in the world for trafficked women.”1 80% are women and young girls, dislocated from their families and the only communities they had ever known, who are forced into sexual slavery – an industry that the United Nation estimates generates around $7 billion per year.2

Young women, las mujeres de las sombras, “the women of the shadows,” as sex workers, are forced to live in sub-human conditions, often sexually abused and exposed to life-threatening illnesses, and are marginalized within society.

Las mujeres de las sombras is an attempt to tell the story of these displaced women and young girls. While their stories are filled with tragedy and sorrow, one must also remember they are not victims and that another life is possible. Heroes like Somaly Mam, a former sex trafficking victim from Cambodia, was able to escape the violent streets of Phnom Penh and now as a human rights advocate works tirelessly to rescue young girls, as many as 4,000 so far, from the inhumane industry. Young girls from the rural countryside, who even in the same country, when moved to the urban sprawl of Phnom Penh, can feel displaced and dislocated within their very own country - as many people in the sex trafficking industry do, no matter if they are nationally or translationally transported away from their homes.

The project is a series of two piñatas, the colorful paper maché, Mexican folk-art medium. Each piñata represents an aspect of the story of the sex trafficking industry. The first is a stiletto with a chain, representing the reality of sex trafficking and how women are made captives, either physically and/or mentally, in the brothels they service. The second, a piñata made in the shape of a bird, represents the freedom of the young girls and women who were once inside of the industry. This celebrates hope and struggle of women across the world, as sexual trafficking is a global phenomenon, occurring in every major city across the world. This piece intends to bring awareness to inspiring heroes like Somaly Mam, who are fighting for justice and human rights for themselves and Las mujeres de las sombras.

1. “Ending the Business of Human Trafficking in NYC,” National Organization of Women NYC Fact Sheet, 2010.
2. Ibid.

Part of Art for Change's dis/located group exhibition

Human Rights: Innovations

Human Rights: Innovations is the intersection of international law, science, and a touch of magical realism. Imagine a science fair of experiments and new technologies, with the sole focus of addressing major human rights violations facing the globe today. Some of them require technology that has not yet been invented, others require the finances and research to make them a reality, and others simply remain science and technological dreams. All of them together, however, represent the potential for innovative and creative technology to make considerable human rights change. One innovation for this multi-piece installation included the photo above, which was focused specifically on children's rights and the plight of child soldiers:

-Tiny radios that can be made invisible once placed in the ears of young children at risk of being captured to be used as soldiers. The radios, once activated in their ears, will provide useful information to youth on how to escape from their captors, how to return home, and how to identify safe bases from their rebel captors.

Part of Theater for Free People's Black on White group exhibition

Photo courtesy of: Adrienne M. Dominguez