A digital arts exhibition on the H-1B visa has opened at the world’s largest museum in the U.S. to mark the 25th anniversary of the popular work permit falling on November 29. A large number of Indian IT professionals have been issued the visa over the years.
In the exhibition that began at the Smithsonian museum on Monday, 17 South Asian and Asian American artists explore America’s immigration story through this visa. They use it as a visual inspiration to comment on their immigration journeys. The works depict the range of emotions —anxiety, dignity, isolation and opportunity — associated with living in America.
“Our H-1B visa exhibition explores a historic part of the American story from the perspective of South Asian Indians,” Konrad N.G., director of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Centre, said. The works capture the experience of people who come in search of the American dream, he said. In a statement, the museum said several generations of young scientists and engineers from all over Asia had come to be part of a “New America” and shape the United States’ culture of innovation and entrepreneurship.
Opportunity For many, the H-1B visa was more than a piece of paper affixed on a passport; it determined so much of life in America and the opportunity to become American.
“The problem of an indentured service is not new. However, the H-1B visa put a new twist on the matter,” Lilaben Leher, a participating artist, said.
“Drawing heavily upon my experience as a spouse living on an H-4 visa, my work traces everyday manifestations of the duality of belonging and alienation for families living here in the United States on this visa category,” artist Aishwariya said. “The exhibition illuminates an immigration status that often gets stereotyped or left out of dialogue around immigration in the United States,” Masum Momaya, curator of the exhibition, was quoted as saying by NBC News.
“Each year, people from all over the world come to the United States for a better life; some find opportunity, and others endure great hardship. The artists in this show take us through the emotions and nuances of their journeys, illustrating new and complex layers of what has been a defining characteristic of America and American history: immigration,” Ms. Momaya said.
The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows U.S. companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in specialised fields.
