Cycle of Goodbye, from the "We Are Like the Air" series
Maker
Bacani, Xyza
Filipino, b. 1987
Date2017
MediumInkjet print
Dimensionspaper: 16 in x 20 in; image: 12 1/2 in x 19 in
Credit LineMuseum purchase with funds provided by the Jim Ferguson Fund
Object number2022:99
About the ArtistIn We Are Like Air (2013–2018), Xyza Cruz Bacani chronicles the migration and domestic labor experience of her mother, Georgia. This visual story spans two countries, three generations, and two families. Cruz Bacani expresses a wish for migrant laborers and domestic helpers to be regarded by their employers as family, as well as for laborers to remain in connected relationships with their true families. Georgia features as the emotional center of many of the 150 black-and-white photographs in the series. As the story’s timeline extends, Cruz Bacani opens the viewpoint and shows wider conditions for local domestic helpers, many of whom experience exploitative, unscrupulous employers. She wants viewers to see migrant workers, thus her title We Are Like Air refers to their invisibility yet omnipresence in society. Years before her opportunity to become a photographer full-time, young Cruz Bacani had moved to Hong Kong to work alongside her mother as a helper. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Hong Kong Arts Centre; the Bronx Documentary Center, NY; and the Christine Park Gallery, NY; among others. She is a WMA Commission Grantee and a Pulitzer Center Grantee.
![Florence hid her pain from us, but she liked her oncologist Dr. Adi Gidron and described the precise location of all her pains to him. He called her “the best patient I ever had,” and became a sad friend to both of us, having exhausted all the medical treatments Florence was capable of surviving. We had a false flash of hope after she began responding positively to chemo therapy, but it didn’t last. She had 4th stage cancer, the very worst. [...]](/internal/media/dispatcher/4580/thumbnail)
