ARTIST STATEMENT

The words "Smuggle" and "Coyote" have complicated implications within the context of immigration that I wanted to discuss in this piece. For people who are anti-immigrant, smuggling is insidious, it is the permeation of something dangerous through our border, be it narcotics or people who could reproduce. When I heard the word however, the first thing that came to my mind was Brecha, which is Hebrew for 'To Smuggle' and it was the name of an organization in WWII that ferried Jews out of Europe and to safety. The Coyote, who gets his name from Nahuatl Coyotl, is a very sacred animal to indigenous peoples precisely because of its ability to permeate boundaries. The smugglers who have since adopted the moniker are aptly named, and just like Coyote exist in this space of the trickster, a being who can do great harm or great good but often falls somewhere between. It was all this amiguity I wanted to capture in the piece.