Expedited Labor

Expedited Labor symbolically addresses the reliance on seasonal migrants and the inequities that exist within a globalized system. COVID-19 and the closed border policies implemented throughout the world revealed the dependence on migrant labor in order to prevent food crises. Romania and Bulgaria were some EU periphery countries that supplied a significant workforce to Western Europe while Mexico did so to the US. I wanted to allude to the structure of globalization in which there is uncertainty behind the “where” and the “how” of services and the consumer complicity inherent in the system. I also intended to emphasize the continued power imbalance between Western and Eastern Europe, particularly the Balkans as well as Northern and Southern America. Even though the pandemic revealed just how essential this labor is, it continues to be taken for granted through unregulated farming practices that put migrant lives at risk.