Video Installation at ArtOrg’s Moving Walls Gallery: “A Moderate Immigration Story”

Between the sensational accounts of sneaking groups of “illegal immigrants” across the border and the relative ease with which people of wealth can enter the U.S. lies another story – the “moderate” immigration story. This more temperate immigration account is told by video installation artist Mel Racho in “Why are you here? (And where is your accent?),” opening at ArtOrg’s Moving Walls Gallery (200 Division St. South, #140 Northfield) on Friday, July 14.

At the center of Racho’s piece is her family; middle-class people in the process of a first-generation immigration to the U.S. from Jakarta, Indonesia. Part Brady Bunch, part INS interview, “Why are you here?” utilizes video and custom electronics to create a “conversation” between parents and children. On six screens, the Racho siblings, Allen, Aron, Alex and Mel, respond to video of their parents, Alberto and Elena, who ask them questions about their experiences of immigrating and living in America.

This is the story of the Racho family – a middle class family of six – dealing with the slow process of immigrating to the country. It is neither rife with the hardship of illegality nor the relative ease of affluence, yet this particular story paints no less a relevant picture of what it means to immigrate to America today. There was no Ellis Island and no exceptional turn of wealth. For Racho’s family, coming to America could not even be called a calculated, life-long plan. Rather, it was a process that evolved gradually from a desire to create a permanent home. Because of its tempered nature, this story is one that is often overlooked in favor of either more extreme immigration narratives. It provides a crucial perspective to the immigration dialogue currently at play in the local, national, and global dialogue today.

Racho, ArtOrg’s Summer ’06 Artist-in-Residence, was born in the Philippines and raised in Indonesia. Moving to this country when she was 18, she earned a BFA in Studio Art and English at Grinnell College. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art and Media at Columbia College Chicago. Working through an interdisciplinary framework, she combines video and sculpture with narrative text, exploring the themes of reconciliation and reconstitution in terms of how parts “salvage” or retain the whole within them. She often employs fragmentation as a means of telling a story.

“Why are you here?” will debut at ArtOrg in Northfield before it moves to galleries in Chicago, Ohio, and New York.

“Why Are You Here? (And Where Is Your Accent?): The Moderate Immigration Story”
A video installation by Mel Racho, curated by Lisa Otte

Dates: July 14–23
Opening Exhibition: July 14, 6 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Location: ArtOrg Moving Walls Gallery, 200 Division St. South,
Northfield, MN 55057
Contact: Lisa Otte / lisa.otte@gmail.com / 612.239.4105