The Visibility of Labor
Video Installation
Color, sound
China
12 min
2016
The Visibility of Labor exhibition with Tsz Yan Ng. The exhibition comprises an installation and film that deal with issues of labor in global textile manufacturing. More specifically it asks the question of how many pairs of hands go into the design and manufacture of a single garment? Collectively, the field of hands highlights the workers and their labor in the making of the dress, from design to research and development, and from production to shipping. Up close, the fidelity of the hands, with calluses, cuts, and wrinkles, bears evidence to one’s lifetime of work. The project attempts to make tangible the unseen labor by North American consumers who only know the finished product. The immediacy of the casting, as a one-to-one relationship, makes tangible their presence in the world where their labor is invisible.
Exhibited
9338 Campau Gallery (Hamtramck, MI)