MAPPING PRESENCE
2026
Using Minneapolis as a site, I tracked ICE sightings over the span of one week in January of 2026 through data submitted to iceout.org. Layering each day of sightings allowed me to identify “hot-spots” of ICE presence, represented through thermographic heat mapping where red marks the most severe activity. This process makes visible patterns of presence and response that are otherwise difficult to see.
Further inspecting ICE presence, I shift to the individual level, introducing the concept of a witness. Focusing on the façade of the building adjacent to the Alex Pretti murder, the model engages a tragic and violent event as a site of witnessing, interpretation, and response. The façade acts as a witness, but this is only revealed through inspection and reflection. Looking through the windows, viewers encounter themselves, prompting self-reflection on their own relationship to the event, their interpretations, and their response. ICE’s presence is experienced differently by those directly affected versus those more removed, creating a separation of experience that is not immediately legible.
The work engages visibility, forced invisibility, and censorship, asking how presence is felt and how response operates across individuals. It asks how we witness, how we interpret, and how we respond, while confronting the systems of power that manage both territory and people.