Art as activism
has been installing twelve murals around Denver and Boulder to keep the show's monologues alive.
DACA was executed by then-President Barack Obama on June 15, 2012, to provide a two-year period of deferred deportation for children brought to the U.S. without documentation, as well as a work permit and heightened opportunities for higher education. Motus’s show shared monologues from undocumented immigrants that focused not just on DACA, but on their personal experiences being perceived as outsiders.
Pacha’s murals are double-exposure portraits of those who shared their tales. She first took a picture with a camera, then blew it up, printed it and pasted it on a wall; she believes these murals will be up for at least a year. A QR code can be found next to each of the works, which leads to audio of the mural subject sharing a monologue, making it a “multimedia experience and education platform,” Pacha says.
Pacha says the undocumented immigrants she photographed are “on the front lines of immigration. They're principals of schools, they're badass humans who have good hearts. They're not like whining like, ‘Oh, it's so bad.’ We just need to bring more humanity to the issue, because there are millions of people who are undocumented in the United States. This is a pretty significant thing going on.
Her favorite part of the project was meeting her subjects. “I get to actually be with these folks and learn about their story and who they are and what it is that they're here doing,” she says. “That’s where I get educated. That's where I've been learning from all of them. My greater work has a lot to do with that connection in the creative process.