CNN
In a corner off to the side of the famed South by Southwest Music Festival this week, there's a much different sound playing. If you put your ear to a phone receiver in the little unfurnished room, you can hear a young girl, speaking in Spanish, describe how she and her family took their first steps on American soil seeking asylum.
MTV News
“We don’t know who these kids are, what their stories are, we don’t know what’s going to happen to them,” Silguero said. “I wanted to create them on a three-dimensional space so it was harder to ignore. You can’t change the channel. It’s present, it’s physical, and it’s impossible to ignore.”
Texas Monthly
In downtown Austin, among dozens of SXSW showcases and pop-ups, sits a freezing-cold storage pod. It’s not meant as a refuge from Texas heat. Instead, it’s a snapshot of the U.S. immigration system and the chilly, crowded holding cells at Customs and Border Protection facilities.
For Silguero, the subject matter hits close to home. In Brownsville, where he grew up, the Walmart that his family would shop at on the way to South Padre Island has now become a detention center.
The Austin Chronicle
Silguero takes a more political standpoint with his work, considering himself a “bridge between the whole idea of Mexican-American.” He uses art as a way to cope with and resist the difficult, overly politicized issues faced by his migrant community. His main goal through art is to start conversations about immigration.
NPR: Latino USA
That stunt may be forcing the immigrant community to strategize ways to be proactive instead of reactive. Whereas, some Latinos may be plagued with fear, anxiety and confusion, others are taking ownership of their future.
Remezcla
“They are transparent because it alludes to the idea that these children are invisible to the public,” Silguero says. “Nobody really knows who they are. We know that they are asylum seekers. We know that they’re migrating.”
St. Edward’s Magazine Cover Story
“The exhibit opens in January 2016, and Silguero listens to what people say as they appreciate his artwork. First they talk about the art from a technical perspective — the color choices, the design or the details. But then they read the description of each piece and something changes.
Afterward, his friends talk to him about his art. So many of them don’t realize what life is like for farmworkers, for migrants, for immigrants. Some of them don’t realize that the struggle continues today. Now they know.”
SBS News Australia
“Farmworkers vaguely know about their rights as agricultural workers, about their vast strength in numbers, about their vital importance to the world, and that is our greatest issue.
If we can educate them, to educate each other, then we can create real change. Until then, I will do my best to continue to help one person at a time.”
Statesman
“Some of the prints displayed on the border fence will be images by Austin artist Jerry Silguero, whose resistance art was featured last weekend in the Families Belong Together rally at the state Capitol.”