ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WFLA)- Downtown St. Petersburg is known for it’s phenomenal artwork and murals. But if you stop and look closely, you’ll find something strategically attached to the downtown utility poles, which is new and even more thought provoking .
Placed on utility poles, left there for you to ponder or even scratch your head, are mini plastic baby dolls enclosed in wire cages.
Victoria Jorgensen is the artist behind the palm sized installments which feature political messages like ‘Trump hotel,’ ‘ice, ice, baby’ or ‘Trump childcare.’
Jorgensen says each cage is a protest of Trump’s migrant detention centers and her objections to the detention of the babies and older children who are being housed there in “prison-like conditions.”
“Hearing all of news and seeing all of the clips from the detention centers, I felt like I needed to do something,” she said. “If this were your baby in this cage, I would be crazy. I would do something to stop it.”
While Jorgensen can’t stop what is happening at the U.S.-Mexico border, she is hoping her art focuses on what she feels is an injustice and thus heightens awareness and continues the larger conversation.
“My target audience is really not the right-wing people because I think they made up their mind. The left-wing people compartmentalize it somewhere where they don’t have to feel guilty about it, So that’s what this is about,” said Jorgensen.
Jorgensen made each installment by hand, including the wire cages and estimates that she has placed nearly 20 of them around the St. Pete area. She tells 8 On Your Side, she will soon lend her creativity to another project. Her new plans involves live performance art.
Jorgensen’s next work will feature a tattered and torn Lady Liberty, men in cooperate suites, and a baby wrapped in a space blanket, all inside of a cage.
“The last thing will be an invitation to the audience to get inside the cage and see what that feels like, looking out from those wires,” Jorgensen said. “We are going to be ready to roll October 1. I feel as though it is my responsibility to show what I see that is happening and maybe change your mind along the way.”
