Since 2007, US Congress mandated that Immigration & Customs Enforcement maintain a quota of 34,000 detained immigrants per day in its 250 facilities around the country.

As part of the exhibition MAKING PLANS taking place at Human Resources LA (March 18 – March 26), artist duo Díaz Lewis will be holding 34,000 Pillows Workshop. Participants in this free, hands-on art-making session can join the Los Angeles-based artists in person as they take on the US Congress’s mandate — aiming to create a pillow for each bed. The ever-growing pile of pillows reflects the number of beds required to be filled each night, translating the mandate in a way mere statistics cannot. The price of each pillow reflects the amount US taxpayers spend to detain one person per day. 100% of the proceeds of each pillow is donated to Human Rights Watch.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Díaz Lewis – the collaborative duo comprised of Alejandro Figueredo Diaz-Perera and Cara Megan Lewis – create art to prompt social change. After the couple met in 2012, they worked across the divide between Cuba and the US. Now based in Los Angeles, their practice as artists and activists is fueled by deconstructing social processes and the symbols and politics behind them, from two distinct and often opposing angles. Recent exhibitions include “Home Land Security” For Site Foundation, San Francisco (2016); “Soul Asylum” Weinberg Newton Gallery, Chicago (2016); “A Dream Deferred” Aspect/Ratio, Chicago (2015); “Cul De Sac” Mission Gallery, Chicago (2015); and “The Other’s Voice” Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival, Chicago (2014). Díaz Lewis were most recently artists-in-residence at the Chicago Cultural Center through the support of the Joyce Foundation. Díaz Lewis are represented by Aspect/Ratio Gallery, Chicago.

in conjunction with the exhibition MAKING PLANS