“Spaces of incarceration are both nowhere and everywhere, blended into our landscapes. But their invisibility is no coincidence. We hide the things we don’t want to see or that we don’t want to be seen.” – Tings Chak
Tings Chak’s zine is part of a larger published book “Undocumented: The Architecture of Migrant Detention”. Chak is a ‘multidisciplinary artist trained in architectural design whose work draws inspiration from anti-colonial, migrant justice, prison abolition, and spatial justice struggles’. Their work makes the connection between prisons and detention centres clear. It contemplates themes of identity, humanity, status, power, freedom, fragmentation, trauma, institutional violence, home, family, and belonging. Aesthetically, this is transported through diagrams of the spaces and people inside (and outside) of detention centres. Just like prisons, migrant detention centres disproportionately imprison queer, trans, Black, Indigenous, people of colour. Unlike prisons, detention centres also hold children. What Chak’s work makes clear is that we need to abolish both of these violent systems in order to have a world that is equitable and safe.
