A janitor preserves the seized rosaries and pocket Bibles of Mexican migrants

THE NEW YORKER
By By Peter C. Baker | March 12, 2017

The CPB considers rosaries to be potentially lethal, non-essential personal property, and agents dispose of them during intake

Tom Kiefer was a Customs and Border Protection janitor for almost four years before he took a good look inside the trash. Every day at work—at the C.B.P. processing center in Ajo, Arizona, less than fifty miles from the border with Mexico—he would throw away bags full of items confiscated from undocumented migrants apprehended in the desert. One day in 2007, he was rummaging through these bags looking for packaged food, which he’d received permission to donate to a local pantry. In the process, he also noticed toothbrushes, rosaries, pocket Bibles: a vibrant, startling testament to the lives of those who had been detained or deported. Together they make up “El Sueño Americano” (“The American Dream”), an ongoing project that, thanks to its unconventional perspective on U.S. migrant policies, has launched Kiefer into a photography career he’s dreamed of for decades. [More]

South African artist, Mikhael Subotzky’s priests in Artporn Magazine

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS

From "Ponte City" monographs by Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse. Image courtesy of Artporn Magazine

Ponte City dominates the Johannesburg, South Africa skyline. This unavoidable 54-storey apartment building on the Berea ridge has become an icon of the city it towers over. The building has had a chequered history, and Mikhael Subotzky’s film, video and photography, this artist explores the relationship between social storytelling and the formal contingencies of image making. Subotzky’s third monograph, "Ponte City (Steidl, 2014)" is the product of a six-year collaboration with the British artist Patrick Waterhouse. Perceptions of Ponte have always been extreme, its joys and ills exaggerated equally. It has been hailed as the next big thing in urban living and derided as a suicide centre and a rubbish dump.

RELIGIOUS ART | NEWS OF WEEK

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By Gregory & Ernest Disney-Britton

"God is in the House" by Mikaela Castledine, winner of the Mandorla Art Award.

There are few major prizes for contemporary religious art, but we think the biggest is the Mandorla Art Award in Australia. This week, our art of the week is the 2018 winner of the $25,000 award– “God is in the House” by Mikaela Castledine. The theme for this year’s bi-annual competition is “A new heaven and a new earth” taken from Rev. 21:1-2. The Australian artist created a “sacred city” of ready-made glass objects and ceramic towers. It also has turrets topped with crochet domes. We modeled our far more modest award, Alpha Omega Prize after this award, and we invite you to sign-up today to vote this Fall for the 2018 winner.