Bryce Chen, March 17, 2025
On a field of green grass overlooking Monterey Bay, around 150 people sat with their hands held together, frozen in intricate poses. Some sat with their legs stretched out, others with their legs crossed. Above, a drone circled the group, taking pictures and videos of the group below.
From a horizontal point-of-view, the large group did not show any signs of significance. But from above, their forms spelled out a phrase in both English and Spanish:
“Safe Passage
Paso Seguro”
The group, which consisted of community members and students from classes in theater arts, sociology, ocean and social sciences, gathered at Lower East Field on March 4 to participate in “Paso Seguro/Safe Passage.” The event was supported by the Institute of the Arts and Sciences’ (IAS) staff and worked in collaboration with the Weather & the Whale exhibition that will open at IAS on May 23.
The performance was a “geochoreography” by Carolina Caycedo, a Columbian artist born in London, and organized in collaboration with “An Aesthetics of Resilience,” a collaborative research initiative examining the vulnerability of climate change and how it negatively impacts immigration for both humans and animals.
“With this new political context that we’ve entered that looks to erase the democratic structures faster than we ever imagined, [I wanted] to offer a safe passage,” Caycedo said. “Not only for human relatives, but plant and animal relatives. It’s important to be connected to a web of relationships that constructs our societies.”
Participants gather at Lower East Field to organize themselves into groups and form each letter.
Since President Donald Trump’s return to office on Jan. 20, the undocumented immigrant community has been met with threats of mass deportations, separations from families, limited access to public healthcare and an increased rate of discrimination.
Caycedo conveyed that the performance was meant to speak out to multiple subjects, one being immigrant communities.
“[At first], this was Indigenous land, then European settlers arrived, Spanish came, then it became a Mexican country,” Caycedo said. “Now it’s the United States. Who knows what it’s going to be in the future? Hopefully it’s a place where everyone can thrive and have a dignified life. I’ve [had] the privileges of a safe passage, not everyone has had that.”
Participants link arms to form the letter “O” in Seguro.
Humans are not the only ones searching for safe passage. Every winter and spring, gray whales migrate over 12,000 miles from their summer feeding ground in the Bering Sea, located in the North Pacific Ocean, west of Alaska, down to Baja California, their winter feeding ground. Twice a year, over 20,000 whales pass through Monterey Bay and the shores of San Diego.
“We also want to think expansively about the communities most vulnerable to climate change and environmental damage,” said Alex Moore, the curator of academic programs at the IAS. “One of the large risks to whales right now is the different ways that their migrations are interrupted.”
On Jan. 20, President Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement, a treaty that looks to slow global warming and take action toward a sustainable low-carbon future. This means whales’ ecosystems will continue to be impacted at a faster rate.
Moore explained the significance of a “safe passage” for both groups and how their issues overlap.
“It’s not the same for both whales and people, but there’s actually many concerns in common when we think about what it means to be safe and to create a planet that is a refuge for everybody,” Moore said. “None of these issues are in silos. Instead, they’re interconnected.”
When the event began, Caycedo spoke through a megaphone, organizing the attendees into different groups for different letters. IAS student interns led participants and organized the groups into the general shapes.
Carolina and other facilitators directed attendees into different groups.
Sami Elfiqhi, a fourth-year literature major at UC Santa Cruz and a gallery intern for the IAS, expressed how she wanted students to feel when seeing the piece.
“What I can imagine other students might feel is a sense of pride to be part of something. I want [students] to understand the power and the meaning behind this message,” Elfiqhi said. “Being able to see a word spelled out, but also seeing the individual bodies there, I’m sure people will feel connected. And I think that’s important to understanding the whole idea because in creating these safe passageways, we’re thinking of creating community.”
After the attendees positioned themselves into the general shapes of the letters, Caycedo walked around, instructing the attendees to stick out their arms and legs to polish the letters’ details. Caycedo spoke about the significance of using bodies as art.
Caycedo uses a megaphone to direct attendees as they prepare to take the final photos.
“Bodies are our first and foremost tool. We carry our knowledge in our bodies. To be able to put your body together with others to create a collective, it shows anyone that no matter where you are, no matter your circumstances, there’s always a possibility of hope,” Caycedo said. “If you have your body, a healthy one, a privileged one, then you should use it.”
As the event ended, Caycedo shared her hopes of spreading the art and instilling hope to the broader community. On March 11, the photo was posted to the IAS instagram.
“The message we sent today, ‘safe passage’, was not only an offering, but a demand,” Caycedo said. ”That’s what we’re demanding, that we continue our traditions of moving across the continent as we’ve done since time immemorial, to connect to our brothers and sisters from Alaska down to Antarctica.”
