Immigrant Movement International

Culture Committee Occupy Dallas

Location: Main & Akard Streets Dallas, Texas, USA

Project Description: Culture Committee Occupy Dallas and Occupy Dallas recognizes December 18th as the International Day of Migrants. In that regard, we, Culture Committee Occupy Dallas stands in solidarity with those around the globe who are proclaiming Immigrant Rights as Human Rights.

Culture Committee Occupy Dallas with support and solidarity from Occupy Dallas in regard to the “International Migrant Day” created a video project, “Red Carpet,” that will address some of stereotypical imagery of migrant workers in Dallas, Texas, i.e., Grounds Maintenance Workers, better known as Lawn Workers. Also we will express the idea of how we, artists, and culture producers perceive borders to be, and who are the ones who suffer the most due to their existence.

We use the red carpet upon which we place lawn mower machine, with other machinery used by the Grounds Maintenance Workers. The read carpet is used rather to redefine, re-contextualize a true “star” of the day, a true hero of everyday life, i.e., recognition of migrant workers who are quite not just unrecognized, but rather in some aspects disrespected. We all know how media celebrities are walking on red carpet as the symbol of celebration of their culturally constructed importance. Today it is a lawn mower machine that is placed on the red carpet implying that actually it is this machine, with which we associate our stereotypes in our connection with migrant workers, that is used to recognize, culturally recreate, but in this case, a real star, a migrant worker; maybe if, indirectly in our case, the migrant workers are placed on the pedestals of the cultural importance, we might perceive them with different eyes. Also, reading of the migrant t manifest will go throughout the video project, and will be rather manipulated together with the visual frames so to create different feelings of the viewer. With this project we will show our support to our migrant brothers and sisters and their families.

On December 18th, at 2:00PM, “Migrant Manifesto” is also to be read at the location Pegasus Plaza, official meeting place of Occupy Dallas in downtown of Dallas, Texas. This event will be live streamed as the symbol of Occupy Dallas solidarity with migrant workers and their families.

Culture Committee do strongly believe that we must stand together in recognition of these issues of our contemporary society of which migrants and their everyday experience of abuses by racist elements in our federal, state and or city governments are part not to be ever ignored.
In Solidarity

Culture Committee Occupy Dallas & Occupy Dallas

Link: http://www.facebook.com/OccupyDallasCulture?sk=wall

Back to D18 Documentation