Exhibit recreates 'icebox' conditions

While downtown streets are filled with playful pop-up events and whimsical immersive experiences during South by Southwest, Austinites and visitors will find a different kind of exhibit at the corner of Guadalupe and West Third streets — one that helps bring attention to the conditions migrants face when placed in cramped holding cells often called "hieleras," or ice boxes.

The “Asylum is a Human Right” exhibit, organized by nonprofit immigration legal services provider Raices, recreates a cell similar to those used by immigration authorities. The exhibit, which runs Friday and Saturday during the festival, is part of the nonprofit’s campaign to call on Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to stop using these cells.

The conditions in these holding cells have been a source of controversy and lawsuits for years. A 2018 Human Rights Watch report found CBP facilities are often in poor shape. While CBP has denied keeping the holding cells overly cold, migrants have reported frigid temperatures, overcrowding, no access to showers or toiletries and sleeping on floors. Some of Raices' clients at the Karnes detention center, according to the nonprofit, have reported sick children because of the time spent in cold rooms.

At the exhibit, visitors walk into a dimly-lit 8x20-foot storage pod where an audio recording of a child recounting her time in a crowded cell can be heard. Sculptures of children, including one symbolizing a child who has diedon the floor, are spread throughout the pod. Each transparent sculpture, constructed from clear packing tape, is illuminated with string lights that represents the hopes and dreams of each child, said Jerry Silguero, one of the artists who worked on the exhibit. Fresh flowers inside the sculptures represent their potential for growth, he said.

Silguero hopes that the life-size sculptures will help visitors picture the situations children go through in holding cells.

"You can’t scroll past this," he said. "They exist in a physical space, not a digital space. I think that’s important nowadays. You can’t ignore them, you can’t change the channel on them."

Exhibit organizers are quick to note that the recreated “icebox” isn’t an immersive experience.

“By no means are we trying to create an experience here,” said Raices program manager Ana Maria Rea. "None of us will ever know what it’s like to be apprehended by Customs and Border (Protection) and be put in these, essentially, coolers.”

Instead, she said, the group aims to educate passersby about holding cell conditions and hopes the exhibit sparks community dialogue.

For artist Yocelyn Riojas, who also worked on the exhibit, it was important to showcase the diversity of asylum seekers from various cultures and countries. She accomplished this by including a mural as part of the exhibit showcasing the various faces of immigration. Surrounding the mural will be a chain-link fence symbolizing the border wall. Visitors will be encouraged to write what immigration means to them on yellow bandanas that will then be tied to the fence.

“We’re trying to change the story of immigration being this threat to the nation and change it into a story that needs to be shared,” Riojas said. “The goal isn’t to change anyone’s mind or be political. It’s a matter of humanizing the topic of asylum.”