A Lens into the Lives and Dreams of Immigrant Workers

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Echoing themes in Guggenheim’s exhibition Tales of Our Time, curator Xiaoyu Weng considers two distinct practices that illuminate the often-overshadowed stories of South East Asian immigrant workers in a conversation with Hong Kong- based Filipina street photographer Xyza Cruz Bacani and Taipei based artistChia-En Jao. Far from objectified and sensationalized popular-media portrayals, Bacani’s photojournalistic approach documents the workers’ everyday reality,while Jao invites them to retell the dreams they had while asleep in front of the video camera; Each weaving subjective experiences that lie between fiction and reality into the larger social fabric.

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This panel was supported by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum & The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Chinese Art Initiative.