“5949972 - The Truest American”- 2022
(Please play Audio below)
#FLORALFUTURISM
#STEWARTDETENTION
CENTER
#FREEHUSSEINKHAN
#BRIANKEMP
#ANDREDICKENS
Please utilize these Hashtags when tagging images from my exhibition.
Installation “5949972 - The Truest American” is a social justice installation protesting ICE detention center’s nationwide. Thousands of innocent men, women and children, citizens and human beings are imprisoned at these detention centers. Often after being left to sit in a cell for 6+ months these innocents are deported to a ‘homeland’ they once tried to escape by any means due to violence, conflict, corruption and/or a better life.
2 weeks before the artist’s ‘FLORAL FUTURISM’ opening, the artist’s uncle ‘Hussein Khan’ an innocent man, convicted of no crime, was detained at his workplace and taken illegally detained and forced into the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia. The artist includes his uncle’s Commissary number, an oral audio plea and a sculptural installation including chains, as a visual depiction of forced bondage. The rug is placed under the installation as a form of grounding akin to being home. The flowers float above the carpet as a parallel to a forced displacement. The artist wrote the Arabic/Urdu letter ‘Seen” and in some instances crossed it out. By performing this action he causes the viewer to question if those forcibly displaced are seen or unseen human beings left to be forgotten.
The artist is calling on viewers to fully experience the installation, by taking action and calling for the release of Hussein Khan from the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia. “Can we, as a unified group of protest, correct this injustice and helping this innocent man reclaim his freedom?”
The Stewart detention center has had several federal complaint filings against it regarding human rights abuses, indefinite detention, and medical neglect.
Hussein Khan migrated to America as a child from Idi Amin’s war ravaged Uganda. He found a new life and a new beginning and went on to spend his youth, teenage years, young adulthood and adulthood in America.
The artist encourages viewers to take part in the social justice installation by contacting the individuals below and writing letters and sending fax demanding the release of Hussein Khan.
UPDATE: In July, 2022, due to the overwhelming support of my community and all that took part in this project, Hussein Khan was granted his Freedom from his unjust imprisonment.
Mail a Letter to Governor Brian Kemp pleading for the release of Hussein Khan!
