The Visa’s Journey is a visual archive of migration, memory, and the many selves carried across borders. This mixed media painting is both shrine and statement—layering found objects, personal relics, and emotional residue to explore what it means to belong, to adapt, and to survive.

Spray-painted silhouettes weave between vibrant bursts of color and shadowy outlines, echoing the blurred identities formed by displacement. A worn childhood bralette, a Rubik’s Cube, a scantron, and a medicine bottle speak to a life suspended between innocence and responsibility. An old passport and family photographs are reminders of roots, while the whip and good luck bag reflect the paradox of sacrifice and hope carried through every visa checkpoint and expectation.

The piece holds stories not just of one person—but of many: of a mother’s handwritten note, my brother’s image of guiding light, and the Indigenous string tied around hips—a tactile tie to ancestry. Tawa beads from Ecuador bring protection and continuity, grounding the piece in sacred tradition even as it stretches into new terrain.

This is more than a painting; it is a map of how identity gets shaped by borders, bureaucracy, love, resilience, and memory. It asks: What must we carry to prove we belong? And what do we shed to survive the journey?