With vast arms, the attracting of cherry-red jumpsuits against the earthy soil of the courtyard of the BlueBonnet detention facility in Anson, Texas, 34 men held in the facility that a call for help. Reuters The drone of photographer Paul Ratje who flies over is the message immortal – ‘SOS’, also slightly traced on the ground under the feet of the men – in what will be a historical image that has recorded from above what we are struggling to see right in front of us.
The Venezuelan persons being held in BlueBonnet are among the many who are confronted with deportation or have already been deported under the Trump government probably illegal Perform. The president called on 18th-century law that is known as the Alien Enemies Act to send hundreds of migrants to a maximum safety prison in El Salvador based on alleged ties with the Venezuelan gang of the Aragua, claims for what there is fail Proof and little to no appropriate process. On April 19, temporarily the Supreme Court blocked The order of Trump to deport the group at BlueBonnet.
The photo of Ratje is mainly alarming evidence that these men fear for their lives and safety. The Cecot Mega Prison has been in El Salvador marked by human rights groups For his documented cases of physical abuse and systemic refusal of basic needs. It is an urgent smoke signal, one that cannot be ignored. As a photojournalistic document, it is also a very effective tool against the tactics of a government that operates by repressing our direct field of vision.
Aerial photography and cinematography have a long and successful track record of calibrating our perspective. In 1977, the documentary short Dozens powerDirected by modern designers Charles and Ray Eames, viewers made visceral aware of their relative scale in the universe. Starting with a bird’s eye view of the picnic of a few near the Chicago LakeFront, the lens zooms out every 10 seconds by increasing exponentially increasing orders of size until we are transported to galaxies of 1,000 light years and then dangerously back to earth by a carat at ten until we were ours until we were ours until we are ours until we are ours until we are ours until we are ours until we are ours until we are ours to us to us. The makers described the purpose of the film as a demonstration, simply, “the effect of adding another zero.”
I am also reminded of exciting Coco Fusco video workFrom 2021, the display of the artist in a sober boat rowing in the water around Hart Island, an age-old public cemetery for the non-acclaimed dead where thousands Van New Yorkers claimed by the COVID-19 Pandemie were buried. The moments that stayed with me from this work were the frames that were filmed from the air, in which Fusco and her ship look like an arrow in a huge vastness, pointing to everything we could not understand up close.
Photos such as Ratjes are possible with the help of drones, a technology with its own dark legacy of repression and mass surveillance. Reuters said On April 28, a small plane and a drone flew over the BlueBonnet facility to get photos of the men held there, whose identities are difficult to find out. Such strategies are justified when the government deliberately obscures information. A few days ago the White House held the lawns worried with Rows with photos in Mugshot style The immigrants completed by the authorities, labeled with the words “illegal alien” and their alleged crimes. Just like the rest of Trump’s public strategy, the signs are meant to sow fear, not by facts and information, but through a calculated lack thereof.
From High Up the men on the image of Ratje is formally abstracted, but their message is painfully real. His photo is a fantastic effective indictment against a government who misses matches on Americans who miss the forest for the trees.
