1doramenda's Blog

Alfredo Jaar – One Million Finnish Passport (1995)

Alfredo Jaar uses above exhibition to displayed one million passports that had never been issued as a way of opening a dialog about restrictive immigration policies. This great collection symbolized the restrictive nationalism Finland. Compare to the other western nations, Finland has the lowest number of immigrants and refugees. He uses 6000 real Finnish passport to create above artwork. Due to the security concern, a glass wall had been set up to separate the audiences and passport.

When I looked at Jaar’s artwork, I felt something different then his opinion of restrictive immigration policies by Finland. But Jaar’s work give me some inspritation to set up the topic for my blog assignment. I would like to create a statement for anyone to interact with my blog whom find interested.

Passport – Identification of a person, the passport shows most of the critical information to recognize the person who show on the passport; such as name, date of birth, nationality, place of birth etc.)

Like most of the western countries in the world. New Zealand form as a country with multicultural background, huge numbers of migration come here since 18^th century. They gave up their career path, relatives and friends shift to the other countries and started their new life with different reasons; such as better education system, better quality of living, political concern, etc. Most of migrates applying passport are their targets to get recognized from local people and the country – new identity recognized from New Zealand.

Question – Do you think holding a New Zealander “passport” is representing you are belong to Kiwi?

Since I was born in Hong Kong came to New Zealand with some political reasons over ten years ago. I am holding three passports / nationalities –British, New Zealander and Chinese from Hong Kong Special Administration Region. However, I feel seems to be not belong to anywhere. I do not feel I am a Kiwi, British or Hong Konger. I feel lost, an identity crisis.

Julianne Ahn, Mother #1, 2003; fabric silk screened and embroidered with textured yarn on striped cotton; 28 by 28 inches.

Father #1, 2003; fabric silk screened and embroidered with textured yarn on synthetic linear fabric; 30 by 30 inches.

Julianne Ahn, a 2003 B.F.A. graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, wrote to us about her senior degree project, titled 1949;1981 (the years of her father’s and her own birth). Composed of 15 pieces that incorporate silk-screening, embroidery, and weaving, the project draws on portraits of Ahn’s parents.

“An American-born citizen with parents from South Korea, I attempt to identify myself through my mother and father in a different country,” she writes. The combination of photographs with a geometric background “provokes a memory of the past while anticipating the future. Because the language I share with my mother and father is broken, I am drawn to the visual aspect of the identity I was born from and currently live in.”

Vita Plume, Alien’s Passport, 1999; cotton; digitally manipulated image, handwoven jacquard; 55 by 65 inches.

Vita Plume’s textile art reflects her Latvian heritage and her quest to understand the meaning of cultural identity. Her parents emigrated to Canada from Latvia in 1954; Plume was born soon after in Montreal. In her more recent work, created on a jacquard loom, she’s interested in woven structures as cultural identifiers; Latvian weaves are layered with images, such as the “alien passport” her father was issued when, as a displaced person, he entered Sweden from Latvia. Behind the brief data given on the passport is the Latvian identity through which he interacts with the world.

Plume herself recently became an “alien” herself when she moved from Canada to the United States, where she’s an assistant professor in the Department of Art & Design at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.

Can you tell me…

1. Where did you born?

2. What is your nationality?

3. Where should you think you are belong?