"Art can impact the social context of family dislocations and can serve as a powerful tool in encouraging an open national dialogue about Zero Tolerance in our country"

So (sew) America Cares is a participatory social art project with a commitment to raise awareness about the lives of the children separated from their parents at the border. All the faces stitched together strengthen the very fabric of our own society.
In 2018 a Zero Tolerance immigration policy was announced, requiring that all families who cross the border shall not only be separated but also charged in federal court with the misdemeanor crime of illegal entry.

This Project’s mission is to advocate for these children and to extend an invitation to anyone who would like to participate. Thread by thread, fiber by fiber, a participating community will increase its understanding of the circumstances of these children who never asked to be illegal aliens. The project consists of 10 different faces that will be repeated 100 times each to add 1000 faces. The faces had been laser etched on raw canvas to allow the participant to use any kind of thread, yarn, wool, fabric, paint etc. So (sew) America Cares has a plan: to "sew" them back, to never allow these children to be lost again, to create a quilt of 1000 faces representing a portion of these children.
We cannot allow these traumatized children to disappear and in time, be forgotten.People are encouraged to stitch, sew, knit, knot, crochet, embroider, or braid these drawings so as to symbolically recover these children’s faces and lives again.

So (sew) America Cares is an international call for people to participate and raise awareness as to the consequences of this immigration policy and its devastating effect on children. As citizen, artist, mother and a child that suffered being separated from my family for eight years, I am concerned about the hundreds of separated children across our country.

Felt, Sew, Knot, Bound @ Fat Village.

Also debuting in FAT Village on Saturday is "Felt Sew Knot Bound" at the Projects art space (523 NW First Ave.), a group show of works spun from yarn, rope and other textiles curated by Martin Casuso, Peter Symons and Leah Brown. Greeting visitors at the warehouse entrance are Aurora Molina's "Marionettes," nine elderly puppets whose faces are modeled after portraits the Miami artist shot during a residency in Morocco. Kelly Boehmer's intricate "Slip Away" presents a colorful and gruesome bear attack in the forest using yarn, glitter, plastic shopping bags and plush toys.

"It's an incredibly rich and sparkly sculpture depicting this monster scene. It's one big glitter bomb," Symons says. "Her work is so much about beauty and the obscene."

The May FAT Village Art Walk will run 6-10 p.m. Saturday, May 30 in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Call 954-760-5900 or go to FATVillage.com.