When it comes to my relationship with bureaucracy, my story is best told through the numerous documents that outline my nationality. Because I was born in the United States to parents who were immigrants from two different countries, I have citizenship in Japan and the United Kingdom in addition to the U.S. I decided to use my birth certificates as the main bureaucratic documents to explain my background. I began by roughly outlining all the birth certificates and then using a mixture of white and black gouache to paint the background of my American birth certificate. I then glued a printout of my Japanese birth certificate. I hand-wrote my American and British certificates in an overlapping fashion to develop some depth. I used imagery from my passports to fill in the space surrounding the certificates. Over top, I laser cut a mix of the phrases “Where are you from” and “Where do I belong”. Both phrases share the word “where”, which is clear at the top of the page. As the phrases continue, they become intertwined and the letters mixed to show how the phrases have become confusing and complicated more as I have begun to explore my own cultural identity.
