There’s a heaviness in the words people speak when they’re simply trying to survive, and those words stayed with me. This piece is rooted in the voices of immigrants gathered through interviews, articles, and the stories of people close to me.

While shaping this work, I found myself returning to the rawness and precision of Charlottesville, 2020 by Alexandra Bell. Her intervention in the New York Times layout sparked my use of newspaper clippings from Trump’s inauguration and ICE raids as a visual foundation, layered with meaning, memory, and resistance.

Cutting, pasting, rearranging, this hands-on method took on deeper meaning after flipping through The Last Whole Earth Catalog (1971). The simplicity of Stewart Brand’s tools, just paper, type, and scissors was a reminder that you don’t need much to create something meaningful, only intention and a sense of care.