Series of 7 pigment photos, 25in x 35in each. 2012

The title refers to the unexpected transformation of the scornful term ‘nimby’ (not in my backyard,) seen in the recent events in Crete, IL, where local residents and immigrant activists fought successfully to block the building of a new private detention center by Corrections Corporation of America.

The activists from Crete and Chicago worked with the artist to hold a commemorative reunion/photo shoot of the two communities that were instrumental in stopping the detention center: Concerned Citizens of Crete, and members of the Anglican Catholic Mission of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Little Village, Chicago. The reunion was hosted by the Mission as the allies begin to organize against the next incarnation of the proposed for-profit detention center, in Joliet.

Thanks to the Community of the Anglican Mission Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Little Village, Chicago; Concerned Citizens of Crete, IL; the no-name collective; the Kaplan Institute for the Humanities and the Art Theory and Practice Department of Northwestern University.