March 27, 2026
Professor Rogério Pinto spoke with WDET about his new art installation “ICEBREAKER,” which honors the lives lost to ICE and in detention centers. Pinto was inspired by the response and resistance of Minnesotans to Operation Metro Surge, the controversial immigration enforcement operation by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that took place in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area this winter.
“I wanted to do something that would somehow evoke the same kind of quiet neighborhood that can become a war zone,” said Pinto. “This is an opportunity for us to come together and to show what it is that we are about. Someone has to preserve and memorialize the names and the memories of those who have become invisible.”
