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| Today, I have 132 mosquito-passports in total, including a UN laissez-passee one. Around this time last year, the idea of collecting as many passports as possible was merely a running joke between me and my friends. I would tell them that my being in Australia was my first step into collecting as many permanent residency visas as possible. They knew that I wanted to be a world citizen since I was little.
About two years ago now, I met Will in an immigration office. I’ve lost my passport, and he got his working visa washed in his pants. For a few days we were the constant clients of immigration’s endless (they did this really skillful stunt called typing a whole report with a single finger) interrogation. I discovered that Will, admiredly (and at his age, he’s especially inspiring), still flew around the world consulting governments on drafting their new law and regulations. And so our discussions continued outside the wonders of the immigration office. Will told me that my intent reminded him of Garry Davis. That’s when I started thinking more about this project. At around the same time, I started rethinking a small project I’ve done for the post-exhibition catalog of Globos Sonda. That’s where the mosquitoes came from. And now I find myself here in Amsterdam, finishing up my 132 passports. |
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It was a long journey in a quite short period. I’ve since learned many interesting facts not less bewildering than the TPP (Tongan Protected Person) passport (Imelda Marcos had one) and about artists like Hasan M. Elahi. |
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On my way to Amsterdam, I traced the covers in Singapore during a two-hour transit, and also in the airplane. When we arrived in Amsterdam, some of the airport workers were on strike, and so the luggage took quite a while to come out. I sat down and continued doing my passports. The act entertained myself, nobody else seemed to care, and I didn’t really care if they did. I thought it’s simply hilarious to do such thing with an urgency of an elementary school student doing all the homeworks that she chose to forget doing at home (the story of my childhood). It was as though I had to finish making my passports before I land, to present them to the immigration officer at the border. But these are not real passports, Ms Wulia. This project keeps me laughing. – Now I have only a few more to go, comparably. But I haven’t met anyone from St Vincent and the Grenadines, for example, and no matter how familiar the country’s name is (I’ve always felt I’ve heard a band by that name), I have no idea how their passports look like. So I think from now on it’s simply gonna be tough. |
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(Re)Collection of Togetherness is an ongoing project exploring the conflicting tendencies between chance and nationalism, between natural and man-made systems, and between the recognition of self and the constructs of identity. |
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