Works-in-progress,
developed with support from the Velvetpark Residency
Named after the Philippines’ Department of Migrant Workers, the DMW series assembles reproductions of found paperwork, job applications, and identification documents from a vast network of over 3,000 agencies recruiting Filipino laborers abroad. Using cyanotype, I transferred bureaucratic paperwork (recruitment forms, worker intakes) onto burlap and linen—agricultural textiles—cut to office A4 size dimensions. Amid the banal language of employability, personal details and intimate accounts rise to the surface. Ghostly impressions and raw edges haunt the objects, exposing the absurd bureaucracy of state-sanctioned labor policies that perpetuate the rupture of Filipino families.