HOME IS WHERE WE MAKE IT

Home is Where We Make It

Highland Park NJ 2022

Thank you to the community who came together to protect this message of radical hospitality for refugees and asylum seekers in New Jersey.

My intent in creating this work was to highlight that the people, in New Jersey, and in Highland Park welcome all to build their homes here with us. The mural is meant to honor the specific actions taken by community groups to build a borough that is safe and hospitable to all. The faces you see here represent lesser discussed refugee groups.

Anyone can become a refugee. It is not a definition of a person, but a status granted by circumstances often outside of ones control. There is no ethnic group that makes up refugees. But this design specifically reflected those whose stories are alive right in Highland Park right now. In short, the refugees, right now, among you, may look like these people. This mural is not meant to reflect the entire diaspora of persons who have been refugees.

We do not need to see our own faces in public work in order to appreciate the work’s purpose. In fact, my hope is that this mural would serve to speak to the beauty in those we may think of as strangers.

Do not allow yourself to be distracted or in sorrow due to the defacement of the mural. Instead, I ask you to feel so proud of what people can do when they come together.

Many people said kind things during this installation. However, many people, said hateful things. I alerted the local borough, and the mayor, who verbally stated that the borough would station police presence to support the completion of the mural. While this specific outcome never happened, many community volunteers showed support by becoming buffers themselves between the work, and anyone who would seek to distract from completing the work or to silence this message. To me it is a reminder, the power always remains with the people. My hope is that this experience will call to light how important each body, each voice is, in building our communities as we would like to see them.

This mural was intended to reinforce the message that if you, from whatever situation you are arriving here from, if you are seeking refuge, this is where you can trust space is held for you, this is a place you are welcomed. This message seems to be lost in light of this vandalism. If we cannot keep an image representing refugees safe, how can the people who this represents feel safe, if even a picture cannot be safe?

Public art can often be a mirror for a community. And if you are in this community and don’t like this reflection of your home, now is a perfect time to stand up against any hatred that challenges this message. The message again, is that there is no room for hatred in this community and that: HOME IS WHERE WE MAKE IT.

A NOTE TO REFUGEES:

You are wanted and needed in our communities. This is a place where when hatred shows up, the community showed up stronger. Like many of you, I was not born in the United States. However, I hold my hopes and dreams of this nation accountable. I hope you will too.

This is the playlist I used while working on this project.