Shoot the Immigrant Child, interactive mixed media with sound, 2019, 24 x 16 x 16
Shoot the Immigrant Child is a collaborative work between visual artist Dr. Michael Faris and sound artist Alex Kirt.
The work includes three images of an immigrant child printed on handmade paper inside a small cage. A toy gun in a holster is mounted onto the side of the cage. The electronic trigger of the gun is wired to a digital audio player that is hidden inside the base of the cage. When the trigger is pulled, the sounds of a crowd laughing hysterically can be heard.
The intention of this work is to act as a mirror reflection of the attitudes of xenophobia, anti-immigration, and racism that are widespread in American society. Rather than hearing the anticipated sound of a gun blast, or the sound of a child screaming, the viewer hears the sound of laughter when the trigger is pulled. This is meant to represent the attitudes that immigrants and refugees should "go back home" or "solve their own problems"; attitudes that are in many cases a death sentence to people that have found themselves in dire circumstances beyond their control. These attitudes lack any semblance of empathy, humanity, or compassion for people who have been deemed "others" by American society, a society that is literally and ironically founded by immigrants, many of which came to the United States in a desperate attempt to escape from political, economic, ethnic, and religious persecution. Shoot the Immigrant Child forces the viewer to experience the shamefulness of these attitudes and to reconsider their own attitudes toward people who are currently faced with a set of circumstances that likely share many similarities with themselves or their own immigrant ancestors.
