K aren Fiorito’s billboard art stands high above the Grand Avenue Arts District in down- town Phoenix. On one side, the “Swamp King” piece depicts Donald Trump as a dissolute bog monster, swimming in the chaotic filth of his own bluster and graft. The other side of the billboard is much simpler. It has no words, yet it speaks volumes. Two photos stand side by side. On the right, robed and masked members of the Ku Klux Klan march menacingly in the night. The date reads 1922. On the left, a small group of people clad in uniforms, helmets and face masks stare awkwardly at the camera. Their uniforms reveal them to be Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The date reads 2025. Fiorito, who lives in Southern California, installed that side of the billboard in September, before ICE agents in Minneapolis killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good, before ICE announced it planned to stick detention centers in Surprise and Marana, before thousands marched on the Arizona Capitol to protest the escalation of ICE activity in the Valley. It was the harbinger of a wave of anti-ICE art that’s been popping up around the Valley for months. “That’s why I love billboards,” Fiorito says. “People go to certain galleries or certain shows because they want to see certain work, but you don’t always reach everybody that way. You can put a message on a billboard and people hate it or love it.” NOT OUR FIRST RODEO In 2010, when the people of Arizona were suffering under SB1070, the “show me your papers” law that gave law enforcement officers the power to ask people they stopped for other reasons to show their immigration papers, we made art. As Phoenix New Times reported in a 2020 retrospective, “the impact (of SB1070) on Arizona’s collective psyche is evident in the culture here. It’s present in the works of artists … who protested 10 years ago, and all those who’ve made works addressing immi- gration, racism and border politics in the decade hence.” Many of these highly detailed protest signs — such as a cartoon of the judge who presided over the federal case against Maricopa County for unconstitu- tional policing beating up infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio — still make common appear- ances at community meetings and protests. And now we’re here again, back to inno- cent people fearing for their freedom and their lives, back to anger and grief and frus- tration and back to artists expressing what so many Phoenicians are feeling. In the past year, Phoenix-area rapid response groups have sighted ICE more than 100 times across the Valley. The agen- cy’s true presence in the Valley is likely much larger, and it’s unclear how many Arizonans the agency has picked up in the last year. But in early morning raids, agents have grabbed Phoenix-area painters and construction workers at gas stations, work- sites and Home Depots. Agents have teamed up with Pinal County Sheriff Deputies to pull over and detain anyone in a work truck in San Tan Valley. Agents have brought chaos in quiet, suburban neighborhoods from Avondale to North Phoenix as they busted down doors of homes to arrest undocumented immi- grants. Agents have stood outside of Phoenix immigration court to arrest undocumented immigrants who’d duti- fully shown up to scheduled court hear- ings. And agents have raided businesses, including Sakura Sushi, taco truck chain El Taco Loko and Zipps Sports Grill locations that netted nearly 40 arrests. ‘THE ALGORITHM WON’T SAVE YOU... BUT YOUR COMMUNITY MIGHT’ Artist Shela Yu, who works under the name Shellshaker, created a poster in January that represents her feelings about ICE and her Chinese heritage. A woman warrior carrying a flaming sword rides into battle on a charging horse. The bold lines evoke power and rebellion. The poster proclaims “ABOLISH ICE,” with the sword standing in for the I in ICE. (An alternate version reads “FUCK ICE,” as do the Chinese letters on the woman’s cape. Both versions are available for free download on Yu’s Instagram account, @shellshaker.) “I’ve been thinking a lot about the power of our collective anger and grief,” reads the caption on Yu’s Jan. 26 Instagram post that debuted the poster. “Don’t let it numb you. Don’t let it jackknife you into submission. Don’t let it harden your heart. … Scream if you have to. Cry. Shake. Dance. And try not to isolate. The algorithm won’t save you… but your friends and community just might.” In “Sock Check,” a work in prog- ress by Zandria Guzman, who works under the name ZMoney, a man lifts up his pant leg to reveal the words “Chinga la Migra” (“Fuck ICE”) on his sock. “This piece was inspired by the ‘sock check,’ a gesture I grew up seeing/hearing where someone would lift their pant leg to show their socks as a way of expressing style, identity and how ‘down’ they were with their community,” Guzman writes in her artist statement. “By connecting this cultural gesture with a political message, the piece represents how Chicano pride and resistance can show up in everyday expressions. … For me, art is a way to spark conversation and stand in solidarity with my community.” At the intersection of women’s rights and ICE raids is a print by Eric Lindquist based on a woodcut he made. The Statue of Liberty towers over an ICE agent, ready to flatten him with her torch. The print reads: “SHE SAID NO!” Lindquist makes art to show sympathy and solidarity. “I hand out prints knowing that each piece of paper will become a story between like-minded people, and each of them will be reassured of their certainty that every aspect of (this) policy is wrong,” he tells New Times. “I don’t make protest art for authority, but for victims of it.” The artist known as Fancy Dress began dotting downtown Phoenix with a series of ceramic mosaics in 2019. “I just wanted to express something fun and vibrant. But then, all this madness happened,” he says. Today, he makes his mark on the city with his signature Cat Sūp cat skull image and the slogan “FUCK ICE,” which he prints and tapes to light poles, paints on walls and sticks on buttons. “As a public artist, what I can do is high- light the interminable douche-baggery and laughable un-coolness of Trump and his three-ring circus of backwoods connivers,” he tells New Times. “I am so absolutely disgusted by these Tiger King Fascists that you’re gonna see Cat Sūp all over Phoenix saying ‘Fuck Ice,’ ‘Fuck Nazis’ and every variation in between until these degener- ates are no longer in power.” CREATIVE POWER TO THE PEOPLE Last year, filmmaker and artist Ray Kennedy was attending a Know Your Rights workshop hosted by Organize Solidarity when she began to ponder a fundamental question. (Illustration by Shela Yu / IG @shellshaker) BY JENNIFER GOLDBERG How the Valley’s fiercest artists are fighting the deportation-industrial complex. Karen Fiorito’s anti-ICE billboard art stands on Grand Avenue. (Karen Fiorito)
