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I.M.O.W. Team

COMMUNITY VOICE:
Migration Series

Artist Mariana Castro De Ali uses bird migration as a metaphor for the ordeal immigrants face daily. Whether they are being hunted by governments or law enforcement, weighed down by debt and unemployment, or facing a lack of social services, immigrants must do what it takes to survive.

Migratory birds and humans share the common experience of fighting for life. Birds migrate to survive the winter; People emigrate to escape insurmountable circumstances, in search of better life. However, in the U.S., the American dream seems to be failing: people are losing their homes, their savings, their social services and their retirement plans. Now, we are even seeing some reverse migration--people going back to their original countries because they are unable to find a job in the U.S. or because their home gets foreclosed upon.

In my migration series, I use print receipts and price tags as an artistic medium to portray the reason that brought most of us to the United States: economic opportunity. Now, those reasons are no longer valid.

Print of birds and immigrants on receipt
Reverse Migration, 2009
Linoleum print on purchase receipts
Print of birds and immigrants on receipt
Aves Migratorias, 2009
Print on sales receipts

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