Refuse Fascism LA | The Disappeared / Los desaparecidos:
Human Installation & Short Film

The Disappeared is a multidisciplinary art project that examines the human cost of immigration enforcement in the United States. This section of the project, a collection of posters, represents individuals who were taken by ICE agents and detained without due process in facilities across the country. Many were deported to other countries without legal recourse or a pathway to reunite with their families. Others remain unaccounted for, having disappeared into a system with little transparency or accountability.

The mural installation, unveiled on Olvera Street in Los Angeles on July 3, 2025, features the names and faces of people detained or deported during the Trump administration’s ICE raids. The installation functions as both a public memorial and an act of resistance. In a powerful moment, Mateos is seen holding a photo of Moises Sotelo in front of the mural, underscoring the personal and collective cost of these state actions.

The accompanying performance featured dozens of participants dressed in white, kneeling silently in formation to evoke the haunting imagery of detainees in El Salvador’s CECOT
mega-prison. By transplanting this regime of visual control onto U.S. soil, the piece draws urgent parallels between Bukele’s carceral authoritarianism and secretive U.S. detention centers such as Camp East Montana in Texas and “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida. Activists have described these sites as black site concentration camps that represent an emerging form of domestic fascism.

A 7-minute film captures the aesthetic and emotional intensity of the installation, followed by a 15-minute talk in which Mateos traces the project's evolution from concept to street action to cinematic adaptation. The discussion reflects on the role of visual language and embodied protest as forms of political intervention and historical witness. Presented at the 2025 Regimes Museum conference at UC Irvine, The Disappeared / Los desaparecidos was described as “powerful and enlightening.” The project asserts that fascism is not a distant or foreign threat but a present and lived danger that demands public confrontation through cultural resistance and collective action.
 
©Pauline Mateos / Refuse Fascism

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