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James Adams: Toxic Public Welfare 3

This image forces the viewer to asses themselves so as to ascertain whether or not they are "at risk of infection." It creates a general sense of being threatened. The faces have been cut out, which might make some more inclined to imagen themselves or their loved ones as one of the individuals being depicted. However, it is also likely quite othering for many viewers who are not cisgendered, heterosexual, white, and looking to conform to hegemonic conceptions of what constitutes "family."

Tannya Islas: Mapping Detention and Toxicity 2

When first seeing this image I am one enranged/annoyed/frustrated. The violence against undocumented people and the racist policing mechanisms that incacerate them become invisible and are obscured as one views an image that could be a craiglist add for an apartment buidling. The toxicity becomes clear in the spatial removal of undocmented people from a metropole. The California desert becomes a mechanism for control and isolation. Additionally, as stated, the lack of bodies and context makes the images and the policing mechanisms in which these images represent seem rather benign.

MAPPING DETENTION AND TOXICITY 2

The aseptic aspect of the facility in the pictures is what most calls my attention. This neatness stands at great odds with the dubious, illegal, conflicting, murky reality of migrant lives. It all seems accessible and, in many ways, even comfortable. Yet, the pictures purposefully leave outside any images that show this is a detention center. Cells are ironically called “east/west housing” -this is no housing; this is a place of abandonment.

Tannya Islas: Mapping Detention and Toxicity 3

By illustrating the literal and material waste that exist near the detention center, one is forced to conisder the environmental racisms that impact those who are incacerated. Additionally, the history of the site has layers of toxicity. Military presence in the high desert connotes a history of US imperialism, nuclear destruction, and the immediate bodily harm. Imperial ruination is thus happening both at the scale of the body and of the nation. This image also implies a history of city planning that traditionally puts hazardous waste close to those on the fringes of bare life.

Mapping Detention and Toxicity 3

"toxic fringes, removable subjects" "toxic fringes, removable subjects"My sense is that the image shows how, while land becomes toxic, instead of considering the removal of the underlying environmental problem, what is thought of as a solution is the incorporation of “removable subjects” or individuals seen “disposable” to this toxic area.