Can You See Us Now? ¿Ya Nos Pueden Ver?
subRosa collective
(member from inception in 2000 till 2005)
Multi-media installation
May 2004–April 2005

The installation sought to map and make visible the intersections of women’s material and affective labor in cultures of production (and production of culture) in North Adams, MA, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. What are the economic, cultural and every-day life effects of the outsourcing of labor and globalization on towns like North Adams and Juárez? subRosa discovered that many aspects of the labor conditions and daily lives of women in North Adams resonated intimately with those of women in Ciudad Juárez. In the museum installation, oversized map pins on large aerial photographs of North Adams and Ciudad Juárez denoted “Points of Visibility” – usually places of refuge or exploitation – in the two cities. A “forensic floor” concealed a dozen spaces beneath its weathered wooden surface. Visitors became active investigators as they discovered the objects, texts, and clues beneath the loose floorboards and made connections between the histories and present-day lived experiences of women working in both cities.