Silent Voice

Collaboration with Gigi Janchang
1993, Market Street, San Francisco, California, Commissioned by San Francisco Arts Commission, Market Street Art in Transit Project.
Public Photo Installation: 25 kiosks, 25 life-size photographs

Photographs were installed in twenty-five kiosks along a two-mile stretch of Market Street in San Francisco. Twelve San Francisco Bay Area immigrants from around the world were photographed pressing themselves against a glass panel in poses intended to rhyme with the Gap’s advertising posters, creating an initial flash of familiarity for passersby. In three of the images, the glass barrier in the photograph was cracked. Each subject wore a black t-shirt with “I have something to say” printed in white letters in his or her native language. The glass in both the photographic image and in the kiosk itself functioned as a metaphor for invisible barriers such as language, race and culture that these immigrants encountered in their new lives in San Francisco.

other Public Art: 0–>∞->0; Reincarnation: Gradual; Self-portrait in Rock; Welcome; WATER Spells