ICE OUT: The Aesthetics and Counter-Aesthetics of Immigration Enforcement and Resistance

This conversation is with queer/trans artists rafa esparza and Cassils on the spectacle of ICE raids, organized by CSGS and NYU's Migration Network, part of the NYU Migration Network Public Conversations series.

Held monthly over the semester, these public conversations bring together scholars, artists, and practitioners for cross-disciplinary exchanges to develop and refine understandings of migration and mobility, its histories, and its political stakes. With migration so sensationalized by much of the media, these conversations are a rare opportunity to invite the public to engage with questions of migration and mobility in a nuanced, thoughtful, and analytical manner.

rafa esparza (b. 1981, Los Angeles; lives and works in Los Angeles) received a BA from University of California, Los Angeles (2011). Selected solo and two-person exhibitions have been held at Americas Society, New York (2025); Artists Space, New York (2023); MASS MoCA, North Adams (2019); ArtPace, San Antonio (2018); and Ballroom Marfa (2017). Selected group exhibitions have been held at Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2025, 2017); Prospect.6, New Orleans (2024); Blaffer Art Museum, Houston (2024); Oakland Museum of California (2024); Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (2023); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2023); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2021); Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson (2022); Moody Center for the Arts, Rice University, Houston (2020); San Diego Art Institute (2019); and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016). esparza is a recipient of Pérez Prize (2022), Latinx Arts Fellowship, Mellon Foundation (2021), Lucas Artist Fellowship (2020), Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2017), Art Matters Foundation Grant (2014), and California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists (2014). esparza has participated in residencies at Artpace San Antonio (2018) and Wanlass Artist in Residence, OXY ARTS, Los Angeles (2016).

esparza’s work is in the collections of Aïshti Foundation, Beirut; AltaMed Art Collection, Los Angeles; Dallas Museum of Art; El Museo del Barrio, New York; Kadist Art Foundation; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Mohn Art Collective: Hammer, LACMA, MOCA (MAC3); Minneapolis Institute of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; San Jose Museum of Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Vincent Price Art Museum, Monterey Park; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Cassils (Los Angeles, NY) is a Canadian transgender artist who makes their own body the material and protagonist of their performances.

Cassils' art contemplates the history(s) of LGBTQI+ violence, representation, struggle, and empowerment. For Cassils, performance is a form of social sculpture: Drawing from the idea that bodies are formed in relation to forces of power and social expectations, Cassils' work investigates historical contexts to examine the present moment.

Gayatri Gopinath is a professor of social and cultural analysis at New York University and the author of Unruly Visions: The Aesthetic Practices of Queer Diaspora (Duke University Press, 2018) and Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures (Duke University Press, 2005). Gayatri is the Director of the Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality.