A half-inch behind the white wall

A Half Inch Behind the White Wall

A Half Inch Behind the White Wall is an immersive, illustrated wall that spotlights the role of immigrant workers in the American garment industry and Transcontinental Railroad construction, drawing on my own historical research and conversations with local immigrant factory workers and managers. Key visual elements — historical texts, images, and relevant hand drawings — are applied only onto those areas of the wall supported undetectably by studs. As the drawing expands and sprawls across the gallery walls, a hidden inner stud structure is revealed: a metaphor for the invisible and unacknowledged immigrant labor pool that has long sustained the American industries and construction of infrastructures. This wall drawing project expands as it continues to be informed by my ongoing research on the trajectory of immigrant workers and their contribution to the American society.

A Half Inch Behind the White Wall, 2023—ongoing, Xerox, pencil on wall, dimension variable (Installation view from Before the Last Spike, a solo exhibition at ArtCenter College of Design)