reVEIL Exhibition
In the current age of global migration, there is a parallel desire to identify difference. Terms such as immigrant, refugee, asylee, alien, and illegal connote an exclusionary view that systematically segregates, pushing populations to the spatial periphery. As methods in the U.S. continue to define, oust, and assimilate at an accelerated rate, it becomes increasingly important to consider the practices with which alterity survives.
*Survival:(n.) the continuance of a custom, observance, etc. after the circumstances or conditions in which it originated or which gave significance to it have passed away.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than half of the service industry’s workforce is foreign-born. Under the veil of cook, cashier, sales rep, dishwasher, cleaning lady, delivery guy, [...], the service industry initiates this population into a hidden realm of work— the backdrop for survival*. the retail fitting room is subverted into a sanctuary for prayer and the restaurant is subverted into a temporary refuge. We celebrate this need and desire to conduct daily rituals, and its resulting network of subversive acts.
IN COLLABORATION WITH ALEXANDRA PINEDA, BRENNA THOMPSON, AND LIMY F. ROCHA.
*Survival:(n.) the continuance of a custom, observance, etc. after the circumstances or conditions in which it originated or which gave significance to it have passed away.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than half of the service industry’s workforce is foreign-born. Under the veil of cook, cashier, sales rep, dishwasher, cleaning lady, delivery guy, [...], the service industry initiates this population into a hidden realm of work— the backdrop for survival*. the retail fitting room is subverted into a sanctuary for prayer and the restaurant is subverted into a temporary refuge. We celebrate this need and desire to conduct daily rituals, and its resulting network of subversive acts.
IN COLLABORATION WITH ALEXANDRA PINEDA, BRENNA THOMPSON, AND LIMY F. ROCHA.
