Textured Lines

Textured Lines confronts the hidden psychic and physical scars left by racial discrimination during a U.S. Summer Work and Travel program—an experience marketed as cultural exchange but designed to exploit cheap migrant labor under the guise of opportunity. I entered this program as a student, hoping to earn enough to support my art studies, but found myself facing racism and degradation that left lasting wounds beneath the surface.

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This body of work transforms these invisible traumas into visible, tangible forms. Using photography, sculpture, sound, and installation, I draw directly from my body—positioned against sculptural backdrops and life-sized abstract structures made with cleaning tools, immigration documents, and ripped paper collage. Each texture, suture, and mark maps the process of living with and working through scars that do not fully heal.

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Central to Textured Lines is the geopolitics of migration from so-called developing nations to so-called developed nations, where many are forced to endure exploitation and racial violence for economic survival. By including the recorded voices of other Work and Travel participants, I amplify a collective testimony of shared harm and cautious hope. Together, we bear witness to our exploitation and refuse its invisibility.

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Created during my 2021 residency at New Local Space (NLS), this solo exhibition invites viewers to stand as witnesses, whether they recognize themselves as victims, complicit bystanders, or direct beneficiaries of these systems. I intend to disrupt assumptions and push audiences to examine how migrant labor, racism, and economic necessity remain tightly bound, etched into our bodies as textured lines we carry long after we return home.