This mural was conceived during the height of the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor protests. During this time, it felt like I was observing attempts to create divisions amongst minority groups. The nuances of my own identity, and experience growing up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, gives me a feeling of solidarity for the oppression of all marginalized people. The mural grew to address intersections of experience and systemic examples of racial violence.
I included the images of Aiyana Mo'Nay Stanley-Jones, a seven-year-old African-American girl from Detroit's East Side who was shot in and killed during a raid conducted by the Detroit Police Department's Special Response Team on May 16, 2010, Jakelin Caal Maquin, a seven-year-old Guatemalan girl who died after being taken into US Customs and Border Protection custody in 2018, and Ashlynn Mike, an eleven-year-old Navajo girl who was killed in New Mexico in 2016. I view issues of police brutality, immigrant internment and incarceration, and missing and murdered indigenous women as linked. I researched New Mexican flora, and chose symbolic flowers for each child. I layered these drawings over the portraits of each child. The final layer was Nazario Sandoval's work in mosaic-like fragments resembling broken glass. The cases and muses for the mural are not overtly named- their presence exists as almost as a background layer- the way these cases often linger in the background of my mind as life continues as "normal."
Nuestras Voces Son Sus Voces
COLLABORATORS
ARTIST: Nazario Sandoval & Helen Atkins
ORGANIZERS: Secret Gallery & Albuquerque ArtWalk
Supported by PNM and the Downtown Albuquerque Arts & Cultural District.