Breaking ICE with Takeshi Moro
Takeshi Moro (Art & Art History) and his collaborators were commissioned to create new works (both digital and physical versions) for an exhibition at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. The exhibition is titled Come to Your Census: Who Counts in America? and attempts to connect art and civic experience through the 2020 Census. The physical exhibition was slated to open on March 28th, but with COVID-19 S-I-P restrictions, an online version of the artwork was commissioned to complement the on-site museum exhibition. An interview about the artwork can be found here.
The artwork, Breaking ICE, is loosely based on the 100 questions USCIS uses to test aspiring citizens and replaces the high-stakes civics and history questions aimed to filter people with an open invitation to cultivate community across difference. Visitors to the online or physical work are invited to explore the questions and respond to it and/or look through responses by others. The website supports English, Traditional Chinese, Spanish, and Tagalog (languages officially supported by the city of SF). The project was generously supported by YBCA, Center for the Arts and Humanities, and Dean's Grant.