This work is part of a project in-progress. The subject is the phenomenon of the multitude of unwanted people in the world: the expendable, unneeded, disposable, disappeared, excluded, the undocumented people, whose ranks grow daily. Surplus humanity, they are the victims of the inhuman dictates of contemporary globalized capitalism. I use the embossment of words to make recessed impressions below the surface of the paper, creating a negative space, metaphors for absence. Since no ink is used in the printing of them, the words are read through the disposition of light on them.
As Jenna Brager notes in her essay, “Bodies of Water“: ‘Disappearance is not just a euphemism for state murder; it’s intrinsic to capitalism’s need for disposable classes.’
