The White HouseThe White House

Since the inauguration of Trump's government, migration policy and narrative in the United States have intensified. However, for several years, violence against migrants by the US state apparatus has been constant. In 2024, under Biden's mandate, 21,744 people from the rest of the Americas were forcibly removed each month, evidencing the brutality of deportations. The White House explores the literality of violence against migrants, focusing on the experience of persecution and state security control.

The space is divided between the white and the rest. In the white space, an automated search and expulsion machinery is observed. On one hand, facial recognition algorithms track visitors, and using machine learning methods they are classified according to potential risk, imitating the systems of companies Palantir and Babel Street, who sell data analysis platforms and AI internal surveillance. On the other hand, an automated robotic arm with an air marker, similar to that used by agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) against protesters, analyzes and sequentially expels 21,744 orange points toward the non-white space, mapping separated lives, leaving accumulated physical traces on the floor.

Through a performative exercise, the experience of persecuted and deported people is evidenced. Despite their anonymity, time and space are provided to recognize their history, one by one, as something more than a simple statistic. At the same time, the exercise evidences its own futility. The facial classification system is arbitrary and prone to errors. The robotic arm, despite its mechanical design, is imprecise. The space begins clean, white, but over time, it ceases to be so. The system, despite its appearance and structure, is fragile; a breakdown is sensed at any moment.