THE OTHER HALF
2012 “The Other Half”, takes its name from the late nineteenth-century Victorian notion that attempted to restructure the working class as the inversion of the bourgeoisie’s own self-image. At the same time, walls were built within the city to keep the sites of the working class out of sight. Today, the walls are built around the nation to create a similar division between the exploited transnational labor pool and those who reap the benefits -- labor spills over the wall to fill the need for manual labor, undermining the arrangements and order of the dominant optical regime. Deportation comes to function as the regulatory mechanism: out of site, out of mind. |
The Hotel del Migrante, located two blocks from the international border between Mexicali, BC and Calexico, CA, offers shelter, clean clothing, and food to recently deported migrants free of charge. The shelter feeds and provides sleeping accommodations for up to 200 deportees nightly.
This photographic series documents the transitory nature of the space, which accommodates migrants who will soon leave back to their place of origin, and also those who will wait for another opportunity to cross into the United States. The results are imprints on the space itself, some temporary, others permanent. |