LLÉVAME AL RÍO
2024

Center for Performance Research, New York, NY, November 17, 2022, Photographer Whitney Browne

The artist uses her hands to soak her body with water until she is completely drenched from head to toe. 
This performance centers the violent weaponization of the borderlands and the subsequent rise of drownings across the Rio Grande River. In July 2023, the  governor of Texas enacted Operation Lone Star, deploying a 1,000-foot chain of metal buoys that currently floats on the Rio Grande along Eagle Pass, TX. These floating buoys are separated by circular saw-like sheets of metal and are fastened to the river bottom with mesh nets that prevent swimming beneath them.

According to the Eagle Pass Fire Department, at least 17 people have drowned at this crossing between February and July 2024. These deaths include a mother and her two children, who drowned along the buoy line in January after Texas military troops prevented Border Patrol agents from rescuing the family from the river. The state of Texas has also deployed the National Guard to the border, where they have installed miles of razor wire along the river banks, resulting in numerous serious injuries to both adults and children. Between September 2021 and September 2022 alone, Border Patrol recorded 895 migrant deaths, 172 of them “water related.” However, the real count of total deaths and drownings along the border is estimated to be much higher as no agency in the US or Mexico keeps a comprehensive record of these statistics.