January 2022 AIR: Guanyu Xu

We are excited to share the work of our first resident of the year - Guanyu Xu!

Learn more about their practice and process of layering, installing, and re-photographing images in spaces from the interview below.

The Dining Room, 2018, 87.5’’x70’’, Archival Pigment Print.

Q & A

For every individual, nationalism and identity are multifaceted attributes. You illustrate this so well in the way you layer, install, and re-photograph images in spaces. Can you talk more about your process and how you know when a space is ready to rephotograph?

In my project Temporarily Censored Home, through situating images in spaces, I can subvert/reclaim the spaces and bridge the associations between personal, familial, and societal. My expression of freedom is deeply influenced by my parents (and of course, through their relationship to the government) as well as the societal structure, both China and the U.S. 

In Resident Aliens, I approach portraiture through collaboration and consider photography as a more time-based medium. The installations allow me to represent the identities of my collaborators in layers. The photographs provided by these people from their personal archives converge space and time, showing personal histories and complex formation of identities.

In both projects, the photographing moment is always not the "decisive moment." Of course, these moments are constructed. Additionally, in Temporarily Censored Home, the constructions were constrained by the urgency of the process. Whereas in Resident Aliens, the installations cannot be exhausted, just like we cannot use a photograph to really truthfully represent anyone. These process-based projects require lengthy preparation and allow new possibilities. But they also inevitably deal with failure. So Again, how can one define a person with one photograph? Or only with a stack of immigration documents? 

You mentioned in your proposal that, "For many immigrants, the home could never be private and secure." Can you expand on these feelings?

It is from my own experience and the accumulation of similar stories from my friends that drove me to start "Resident Aliens". For instance, even with an artist visa, I still need to go to the U.S. consulate every time before I come back into the States. In the past, I have experienced a secondary inspection at U.S. Customs in Chicago, and an identity check by the U.S. Border Patrol in California. One of my close friends was interrogated and harassed by a Customs Officer without clear reasons. The creation and the use of fear psychologically control us. A resident alien, who is required to pay the same tax as a citizen, may not only need to struggle for assimilation in the public space but also potentially cannot see the home as a safe haven. We are not citizens, and our homes are temporary. Under the systematic oppression, to a certain degree, staying at home could be a house arrest: we either leave to struggle for assimilation or stay in worrying about the shift of immigration policy and foreign relations. This perpetually contradictory and temporary state is why I want to photograph people in their homes. Under Trump's shifting immigration policies, many people were in a constant state of uncertainty. The Covid-19 pandemic even added more difficulties to many people I photographed. These constructions of state power perpetually classify immigrants as potential subjects of criminality. Meanwhile, it also privileges states' ability for economic exploitation. 

Space of Mutation, 2018, 50’’x40’’, Archival Pigment Print

The language around immigration can feel exclusionary and insensitive. Can you talk about your use of the word "alien" in your project Resident Aliens and how you feel about the terminology surrounding immigration?

The term in my project is appropriated from the U.S. government, as explained on IRS's website:

If you are not a U.S. citizen, you are considered a nonresident of the United States for U.S. tax purposes unless you meet one of two tests. You are a resident of the United States for tax purposes if you meet either the green card test or the substantial presence test for the calendar year (January 1 – December 31).

 The terminology certainly connotates illegality and danger. Pop culture films also reflect it since 9-11: aliens constantly invade the Earth.

Rooms of Convergence, 2018, 50’’x40’’, Archival Pigment Print.

Your images are a negotiation of power and assumed stereotypes. What is a positive outcome you hope to achieve when a viewer is confronted with this dynamic?

 The project looks to bridge the gap between immigrants and citizens, as well as different populations of immigrants. I aim to reach out to people who have different visa statuses in the U.S.—working visas, artist visas, asylum seekers, etc.

My actions with participants are not only an integral social practice in representing their complex identities and histories. As a "foreigner," entering their "territory," I transform their temporary states of being into installations and preserve the constructions as photographs. The project presents immigrants' intimately nuanced experiences within their homes and in the U.S. at large. These convergences of spaces and times invite the viewer to enter into spaces of fluidity rather than fixed perspectives. They mobilize the viewer's gaze, imagination, and care, defying strict definitions. Through collaboration and conversation, "Resident Aliens" presents the complicated conditions immigrants experience in the U.S. I want to ask: In this interconnected world, how do we redefine citizenship and the legality of a person?

What are you most excited about right now? This could be a book, fellow artist, podcast, etc.

That I may receive a green card potentially in 2022 and be able to finally travel out of the US.