Today, immigration detention is a central component of immigration and asylum policy for governments around the world. In the United States, over 46,000 immigrants are detained each day in a web of prison-like detention centers while they wait for their asylum claims to be heard. Media coverage and policy discussion of immigration is often defined by the politicized optics of border crossings. Moreover, the visual translation of the use of immigration detention, especially in the United States, is usually reduced down to info graphics or illustrated maps. But how much does the US public really know about the scale and scope of this system and the trauma it inflicts on people?

I spent seven years on the project Seven Doors (2015-2023) and traveled to nine countries. The United States is the centerpiece of this entire project. Through images, data/statistics, voices and oral testimony and video, this project interrogates the widespread use of immigration detention in the United States in an attempt to demystify and expose: where these places are located, what they look like and how they traumatize and damage the lives of individuals, families and entire communities.

The work from the US titled, An American Gulag presents a multi-layered ‘photographic atlas’ of the US detention system. Panoramic images of the facilities along the western, southern and eastern border and square images of county jails throughout the interior of the US are paired with oral testimony of individuals sharing their experience in these facilities. The voices of those who have been detained or families who have someone in detention serve as the viewers guide into this experience. In an exhibition format, over 25 of these photographs are paired with QR code prompted ‘audio testimonies’. It is an immersive way of transporting audiences closer into the lived experience of what life is like inside these places of injustice. Documentary work and short videos are used to further ground the work and also share personal stories and the efforts being made to combat this system. In parallel with the visual work, data and statistics are used throughout to add more context.

The use of detention reached historic levels during Trump’s first term, and the Biden Administration failed to significantly reduce immigration detention. However, the Trump administration’s second term is already showing America’s immigration detention complex will expand exponentially over the next four years. I intend to continue this work.