Loaded Forms (Ruins) were invited to be part of the small + mighty group show Resisting Erasure: Artistic Creativity in Times of Political Turmoil at the Good Work Institute in Kingston, New York.

Artists: Gülnar Babayeva, Onaje Benjamin, Shirley Parker-Benjamin, Gerado Castro, Chong Kang, Ted Dixon, Richard Franklin, Poet Gold, Dan Goldman, Maureen Gates, Judit Germain Hein, Yoko Izu, Karen Jaimes, Norm Magnusson, Lala Montoya, Sandi Morales, Julia Santos Solomon, Christina Siu, Suprina Troche / Co-curated by Onaje Benjamin, Shirley Parker Benjamin, Maureen Gates & Dan Goldman

Amid increasing global unrest and tightening institutional controls on free expression, artists remain steadfast as cultural custodians and changemakers. Resisting Erasure: Artistic Creativity in Times of Political Turmoil gives voice to those working at the intersection of creativity, resistance, and healing. Featuring multi-disciplinary artists who reflect cultural, and social traditions, Resisting Erasure is more than an art exhibition—it is a call to community dialogue and collective reflection.

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Loaded Forms (Ruins), 2021-2024
Emptied and cut U.S. State Department forms with acrylic and gesso on household waste paper
11.5 x 40 x 3 inches

Loaded Forms (Ruins) are the emptied and crumbling paper structures of U.S. State Department immigration forms, affidavits, questionnaires, and applications. This ongoing series began mid-pandemic in a bare waiting room of a U.S. embassy on the other side of earth, where with no material allowed on my person, I mentally traced the outlines of a passport renewal form. From there, I fell into the bureaucratic machinery of identification and immigration—lost in paperwork that quietly dictates who gets to belong where. In the studio, I systematically trace, extract, and hollow out the fields of each form, accumulating the paper negatives into ghostly cityscapes. They are the bureaucratic ruins of nation-building and border control.

My preoccupation with paper forms can be traced back to when my gravely ill mother-in-law, a Mexican immigrant who had recently obtained U.S. citizenship, was dropped and bankrupted by her health insurance for purportedly filling out a form incorrectly. In this context, my skewed and obsessive material reenactments of bureaucratic labor in the studio are attempts to process and push back against the excruciating life and death banality of administration.