Express
DISAPPEARED IN AMERICA
DISAPPEARED IN AMERICA is an ongoing project by Visible Collective/Naeem Mohaiemen that uses films, installations, and lectures to trace migration impulses, hyphenated identities, and the post-9/11 security panic. Excerpts of the project have been shown at various venues, including the 2006 Whitney Biennial.
The majority of migrants detained amidst the recent security hysteria have come from the invisible underclass of cities like New York—the shadow citizens who drive our taxis, deliver our food, clean our restaurant tables, and sell fruit, coffee, and newspapers. The only time we “see” them is when we glance at the hack license in the taxi partition, or the ID card around the neck of a vendor. When detained and deported, they cease to exist in the American consciousness.
Visible Collective and Mohaiemen are based in New York City. For more info, go to www.disappearedinamerica.org
TOP: Detail from “DRIVING WHILE BLACK BECOMES FLYING WHILE BROWN” Digital C Print, 8×2', 2006. Visible Collective/Mohaiemen, LinBOTTOM: Detail from “PRUDENT JURIES, OR HOW TO REALLY READ THE LAW” Digital C Print, 8×2', 2005. Visible Collective/Mohaiemen, Roy, Huq
LEFT: Detail from “NAHNU WAHAAD, BUT REALLY ARE WE ONE?” Digital C Print, 8×2', 2005. Visible Collective/Mohaiemen, Roy [Post 9/11 Detainee Names from Migration Policy Institute, Washington DC]RIGHT: Detail from “IT’S SAFE TO OPEN YOUR EYES NOW, PART3” Digital C Print, 8×2', 2006. Visible Collective/Mohaiemen, Huq
Contributor
Naeem MohaiemenNAEEM MOHAIEMEN is a writer and visual artist (shobak.org).
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES
Retreat from the Divided States of America
By Ivan TalijancicFEB 2021 | Dance
After a year of artistic stasis and isolation, Ivan Talijancic notices a trend of new international residencies dreamed up by New York artists. With tentative light at the end of the pandemic’s tunnel, and a bleak political reality in America, three choreographers look to a hopeful future on foreign shores.
Within Global Isolation: Asian Artists in America
By Sahar KhraibaniJUL-AUG 2020 | ArtSeen
Within Global Isolation: Asian Artists in America is a virtual exhibition, organized by curators Han Hongzheng and Chandler Allen, and fueled by a spike in anti-Asian sentiments, xenophobia, and discrimination as a result of COVID-19.
Silky Shoemaker: Billboard Project
By Ksenia SobolevaOCT 2020 | ArtSeen
If art is to play a role in political change, the first step is to get it out of the galleries and into the streets. Silky Shoemaker’s Billboard Project, a series of four graphically striking anti-Trump billboards installed in rural Pennsylvania, is one example.
Come to Your Census: Who Counts in America?
By Osman Can YerebakanJUNE 2020 | ArtSeen
The core of the YBCA’s census awareness program was and still is a group exhibition titled Come to Your Census: Who Counts in America?, in which more than 20 artists, mostly from the Bay Area, could exhibit their work on citizenship and civic presence, supported by workshops and performances in line with the organization’s multidisciplinary program.
