02/21/2026
DEPORTATIONS AND RESISTANCE Photographs by David Bacon
Uri-Eichen Gallery
2101 S Halsted, Chicago IL 60608
Opening reception March 13th from 6pm to 9pm
Discussion with David Bacon March 13th at 7pm
On display from March 13, 2026 through April 30, 2026. Call, text or email for an appointment outside of receptions. For an appointment (312) 852-7717 or [email protected]
Photographs by David BaconDeportations have always been part of our history, from the time the greater part of Mexico was seized and a border redrawn to incorporate stolen territory. Deportation was the means to enforce inequality, then as now. Who could then enter, what did it mean to cross the line, and who were the people living suddenly as foreigners in their own lands? Even before 1848, the border between slave and free meant crossing might bring freedom, while capture surely meant forced return to forced labor.
It is impossible to take a photograph of most of this history, to reach back in that way. But to understand a photograph taken today, we need to understand what has come before. Photographs of the border as it exists now, and of the people crossing it voluntarily or not, are not simply a slice of present-day life. They are photographs of the result of this historical process, and what it means to people drawn into it. These images can help us see today's reality in terms of what has come before.
During the years I worked as a union organizer among garment, field and factory workers I began trying to understand the reality of deportations and the border to workers and families. As they fought for social justice, organizing meant more than a wage increase. It also meant fighting the injustice and inequality forced on them by the deportation and border regime.
Since those years I've tried to take photographs that can show us part of this deeper meaning. This current selection of images is part of that work, taken over four decades, not as a disinterested observer, but as a participant in the social movements they show us. Often they've been taken in cooperation with the organizations doing the fighting, and the hope is always that the images themselves will be used to move us forward.
They start looking at the border itself, especially the separation experienced by people on the Mexican side of it. People experience the consequences of separation in different ways - deportees separated from families in the U.S. in a food line on the street or living in a shelter. But the border is more than a wall of separation. It is also the terrain of social struggle, and images include the strikes of farmworkers and maquiladora laborers, and the communities they live in.
On the U.S. side, immigration enforcement is always about the pain of separation, whether by detention center, or by ankle bracelet. Deportation creates its discontents - people both victims of injustice and oppression, and also angered into acting in response to it. Especially now, when we are forced into action by the extreme enforcement actions of an illegitimate government, the photographs must include the ways in which we respond.
A minister stands against a pepper spray gun. Marchers drape themselves in Mexican flags and hold signs announcing defiance in different ways. And for an indigenous Mexican community thousands of miles from its town of origin, a guelaguetza dance festival is not just a way to show off a beautiful culture, but it becomes a cry of defiance as well.
David Bacon
More information here: https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/david-bacon-more-than-a-wall/
Photo by David Bacon.
