How do you describe yourself?

Do you automatically use categories found on official documents – “identity markers,” like race, gender, marital status, age? In this Passport Office installation, I look at the official use of identity markers and reframe these constructs.

The United States (and many other countries) has a long history of categorizing people, granting rights and privileges to some, denying them to others. This started during colonial times and continues to this day. The habit of categorization can also be seen on an everyday basis, whenever we fill out applications for a driver’s license, resident alien or green card, and passport – even for a job and insurance. We must check boxes for all sorts of categories, the sum of whose parts never equal who we are.

In this series that I started in 2013, I worked with a variety of people to create “passports.” I reframed typical application questions and invited individuals to provide answers, not by checking a box, but by using their own words to describe the most important parts of themselves. Together, we express our shared hope for the time when we are not limited and fragmented by categories, when can all be free to be our whole selves.

Carina A. del Rosario

The Passport Series is made possible by 4Culture, the City of Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience, Frame Destinations and individual contributors.