Notice to Appear attempts to capture the dysfunctional dynamics of asylum court hearings and critically examines the arbitrariness of U.S. asylum policy, which gives individual judges outsized discretion over whether asylum seekers stay or go. 

As part of our research and development, we have conducted extensive interviews with asylum seekers who have navigated the legal asylum process in the U.S., as well as with immigration judges, lawyers, and government attorneys. Additionally, we have observed numerous immigration court hearings in New York City and Chicago.

We are currently transforming this research material into a devised script and exploring different modes of physicalizing text, including puppetry, movement and song.

My inspiration for creating Notice to Appear stems from insights gained during my work on the latest project, called SpaceBridge. It brought together refugee children from Russia—who have relocated to the U.S. due to their families’ anti-war stance and are now living in NYC shelters—with their American counterparts with the goal of building lifelong friendships, while coming to terms with their differences.

Working closely with the Russian refugee children and their families navigating the complex asylum process has highlighted to me the arbitrary and dysfunctional aspects of the system.

During SpaceBridge development, we uncovered striking statistics; for example New York Judge David Kim granted 96.1% of cases, whereas New York Judge John Burns approved just 13.7%. These findings raised urgent questions about the fairness of asylum decisions and led me to investigate the inconsistencies in grant rates across different immigration courts and among judges within the same court—an inquiry that serves as the foundation for Notice to Appear.

Notice to Appear is currently being developed by Visual Echo. 

Please contact me for more information.