Jenny Polak
“EDC (Elizabeth Detention Center) isn't meaningful to most people. Abolition is vital and a broader concept. I want the phrase to be a call to action too.”
BIO
Jenny Polak makes site and community responsive art that reframes immigrant-citizen relations, amplifying demands for social justice. Originally from England, Polak’s art draws on her background in architecture and includes public and socially engaged projects such as architectural installations, drawings and useful commemorative objects. Her family history of migration drives her to examine detention centers, racial profiling, and strategies for surviving hostile authorities. Polak’s fictional firm Design For The Alien Within creates hypothetical hiding and dwelling places, symbolic lookout and counter-surveillance structures.
OWN WORDS
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