Invisible in the Light

Bringing the hidden stories of migrant workers into the light.

Gu Xiong created Invisible in the Light (2013-2015) following several research trips to British Columbia and Southern Ontario in Canada. He interviewed and photographed temporary migrant workers around Langley, Abbotsford and the Niagara Falls. Despite the contribution of numerous workers from foreign places in the production of tomatoes, the package was ultimately labelled a “Product of Canada”. The workers’ involvement in the food production and packaging was ignored, and made invisible.

Although the tomatoes are presented as local products, they clearly required the aid of the international community, in the form of migrant workers. Invisible in the Light is interested in this confluence of international and local identities.

Pins are hammered into the wall and cherry tomatoes are then impaled on the pins. Under Gu Xiong’s supervision, volunteers aid in pinning up to 100,000 cherry tomatoes using simple office pins.

“Invisible in the Light 3,” a mixed-media installation in “The Transformation of Canadian Landscape Art: Inside & Outside of Being,” at Xi’an Art Museum,  Xi’an, China, 2014

“Invisible in the Light 4,” a mixed-media installation in “The Transformation of Canadian Landscape Art: Inside & Outside of Being,” at Today’s Art Museum, Beijing, China, 2014-2015

“Invisible in the Light 2,” a mixed-media installation in”Gu Xiong: a journey exposed,” at the Gordon Smith Gallery of Canadian Art, North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 2014

“Invisible in the Light 1,” a mixed-media installation in “Only When the Shades of Night Began to Gather,” at AHVA Art Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 2012