Drawing Detention
by Sima Zerehi
A group of women and children are sitting around a large triangular table in a non-descript institutional setting. The table is littered with art supplies, paint, crayons, brushes and charcoal. Reggae music blasts in the background.
The conversation is loud and boisterous as Denise, a two year old girl, smears paint all over herself and the table in an attempt to decorate her canvas with her hand print. Some of the women are young, others old, and they come from all over the world. The conversation flows in Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish, Hungarian, Hindi and above-all broken English, each language punctuated by laughter.
Despite the almost jovial nature of the gathering, this is not an ordinary art group. These women are all detainees at the Heritage Inn, an immigration detention centre in Toronto. The women are held in captivity for nothing more than minor immigration violations. Some came here as refugees fleeing persecution, torture, imprisonment or gender-based violence. Others came to Canada to work as domestic workers in wealthy Canadian homes or as farmers harvesting flowers. Some of these women have been in detention with their children for months. Apparently it is a crime to search for a better life for themselves and their families.
The Women’s Art Group at the Heritage Inn has been meeting since the winter of 2003. The group is led by four activists from “No One is Illegal (Toronto)” and is run under the supervision of the Toronto Refugee Affairs Council. As the facilities are limited, a maximum of 15 women can participate in each art session. For many of the women in detention, the art group is their only opportunity to interact with people outside of the detention centre. The art group was envisioned as a way to establish concrete links between immigrant/refugee rights groups and the people in detention.
Many of the women were arrested at airports and borders trying to enter Canada after long journeys through numerous countries. These women were shocked that their journey to Canada, which was supposed to mean safety and an end to persecution, ended in detention: “Why are we in jail? I am no criminal,” exclaims one of the women. Many are detained for lack of identification, while others will not be permitted to leave without having family members or friends post large bail payments.
Other women were arrested after having lived in Canada for months, even years: “I was going to work, house cleaning, with my friend, it was a new job and we got lost. We knocked on the wrong door and this lady she called the police on us.” Such stories are common at the detention centre. Most of the women were arrested by the police, rather than immigration officials. Many were arrested in their workplaces, others were reported by slumlords. Most disturbingly, a number of women were arrested for calling the police for protection during an incident of domestic violence.
The art class is a time when the women can get together and share their stories. Art serves as an ideal medium for this interaction. While drawing and painting, the women temporarily relax and try to forget their situation. The drawings reflect the pain and longing in their lives. Much of the work depicts scenes of their homeland, lush landscapes of Costa Rica and the Caribbean Islands, palm trees in the deserts of Iraq. Other pieces are of family members and loved ones.
The art brings the women, who would otherwise have very little in common, together. In one corner of the room, Ling, one of the more long-term detainees, shows an eager group of Asian women how to create elaborate origami pineapples.
The women break into a spontaneous assembly-line, taking on different tasks for the project. “We have made many,” Ling says. I remember the dozens of origami pineapples decorating the first and second floor of the women’s wing of the detention centre, each pineapple representing hours of work, adding up to weeks and months idling in detention.
Through their art they try to send messages to those outside of the detention centre about their conditions, as well as their desire to remain in Canada.
Sometimes these messages are frustrating, as some women express their love for Canada, the very country that has criminalized them. Others express their anger at being detained. But the art provides a medium for the women to break through the prison walls with a powerful message that the prison walls must come down.
