Immigration MIC: Democracy In Audio Forced Underground (Summer 2026)

is an upcoming traveling installation that revives a now-sealed podcast archive that once held long-form conversations with immigration justice defenders during the presidential administrations of that era—voices that once spoke freely and now, in 2025, have been driven back into whispers across this nation. Through anonymized audio, atmospheric listening stations, and fragments of testimony suspended in space, the installation invites audiences to confront the realities of the voices that no longer feel safe speaking in today’s version of “democracy,” the lived experiences that are beginning to be self-erased, and the visceral truth of what it means when our neighbors, friends, and colleagues can no longer participate safely in public life. Part art exhibition, part civic mirror, and part ethical act of remembrance, this project asks an urgent question:

What happens to democracy when its most vulnerable storytellers are targeted into silence and forced back into anonymity?