The power of art with regards to social justice is a force that is sometimes overlooked. Unavoidable proof of this is the “Bought and Sold” art exhibit standing in students’ class routes outside of Jepson and Ryland. As an Art History major I have always been intrigued about the force of an artistic visual representation and its capability to capture social justice through various mediums be that in this case photography. Focusing on human trafficking is an issue I have heard about but to what extent it affected areas, within proximities I find unimaginable, left the audience shocked. Kay Chernush opened the discussion describing how she came to this exhibit and the interactions she has had with human trafficking. Chernush took into account not just the immediate thought of human trafficking that being sex workers but to the cheap shrimp which you see at the grocery store, from labor workers.

The wooden dim room of the Brown Alley Room suddenly seemed to shrink when Chernush uttered the words of this problem being in plain sight yet remains to be invisible to us because we are ignorant because we choose to be. Then when shifted to Monti Datta this wave of guilt became stronger as the assumption many in the room held still stood to be true, the fact that so many of us assume for this problem to happen in uncivilised places. I myself can admit that prior to this discussion I did not know the breadth to which human trafficking reached, to even U.S. truck stops. For Bonnie Price the Forensic Nurse stated that through her training at Bon Secour Hospital, amidst the training held to decipher if one has been human trafficked (specifically sex-workers), it is hard to tell especially because many of them remain unaware that they were trafficked. She said of the 112 that came in the average age was 13.

From this exhibit and discussion the impression was that merely acknowledging this issue and being apart of the understanding is a solution in its own. Although the discussion was incredibly eye opening I felt like it was left somewhat open-ended. Possibly because of the difficulty to combat an issue, which is so stereotyped in the modern day and age through technological perceptions as occurring in strictly impoverished far away areas when in reality it is within hands reach. I think the uproar or shock in itself was the powering push behind the discussion.