Total Transparency Filter (Portrait of N)
Stephanie Syjuco, Filipino, born 1974
2017
Archival pigmented inkjet print
Sheet: 40 × 30 in. (101.6 × 76.2 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through the Robert J. Strasenburgh II 1942 Fund
2019.37
Geography
Place Made: Philippines, Southeast Asia, Asia
Period
21st century
Object Name
Photograph
Research Area
Photograph
Not on view
Label
Through this photograph, Stephanie Syjuco comments on the position of uncertainty that undocumented immigrants are forced to deal with while living in the United States. The printed pattern of the fabric is recognizable as Photoshop’s gray-and-white transparency filter—referenced in the work’s title—which complicates the legibility of the image. The anonymized subject of the photograph is an undocumented individual who received her college education through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. In 2017, President Donald Trump announced his plan to phase out DACA, placing 800,000 individuals under threat of being deported. In order to remain safe in the place she calls home, this individual must remain anonymous, hidden. Born in the Philippines, Syjuco works in photography, sculpture, and installation. Her recent work addresses the implications of photography and image-based processes in the construction of racialized, exclusionary narratives of citizenship. From the 2022 exhibition A DREAM Deferred: Undocumented Immigrants and the American Dream, A Space for Dialogue 106, curated by Yliana Beck, '22 Conroy Intern
Course History
WRIT 5.30, Representing Immigrants, Melissa Zeiger, Fall 2020
WRIT 5, Representing Immigrants, Melissa Zeiger, Fall 2021
WRIT 5.31, Representing Immigrants, Melissa Zeiger, Fall 2021
HIST 2.01, #EverythingHasAHistory, Julia Rabig and Darryl Barthe, Fall 2022
HIST 2.01, #EverythingHasAHistory, Julia Rabig and Darryl Barthe, Fall 2022
Exhibition History
A Space for Dialogue 106, A DREAM Deferred: Undocumented Immigrants and the American Dream, Yliana Beck, Class of 2022, Conroy Intern, Alvin P. Gutman Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, April 30 - June 18, 2022.
Provenance
Ryan Lee Gallery, New York, New York; sold to present collection, 2019.
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