Pop-Up Exhibit • Sundays, November 9 & 16 • Commons Room
Join us during fellowship time on two Sundays in November to experience a powerful pop-up art display – Uncaged Art: The Tornillo Art Project.
This extraordinary exhibit features artwork created by children and youth once held at the Tornillo Detention Camp in Tornillo, Texas. Working with only basic and found materials, these young people produced paintings, drawings, and hand-crafted pieces that bear witness to their resilience, creativity, and deep cultural memory. Many journeyed more than 2,000 miles from Central America in search of safety and hope; their art reflects both the beauty of home and the longing of displacement.
About Tornillo & Uncaged Art
Tornillo: A Tent City in the Cotton Fields
In June 2018, a large “tent city” opened near the cotton fields along the U.S.–Mexico border in Tornillo, Texas, just east of El Paso. Managed by the Office of Refugee Resettlement and operated by Baptist Child and Family Services (BCFS), it became an expansive and costly detention site for unaccompanied minors—housing as many as 3,000 youth ages 13–17 and costing more than $3 million per day.
During its brief operation, approximately 6,200 unaccompanied children passed through the camp before it closed in early January 2019.
The Tornillo Art Project: Uncaged Art
Uncaged Art grew out of a four-day social studies project in December 2018–January 2019. Two teachers invited their students to make art representing their countries, architectural heritage, and cultural traditions—an act meant to foster pride, memory, and identity.
With only simple supplies—construction paper, Popsicle sticks, glue, paint, boxes, yarn, pipe cleaners—students created vivid re-imaginations of home. More than 400 pieces emerged from this brief project, ranging from individual works to collaborative pieces. Although most had no formal art training, one gifted student even taught a class for his peers.
The resulting collection is both beautiful and poignant—testimony to the talent, dignity, and hope of young people who traveled thousands of miles in search of a new life.
