Permission

Boder Crossing Entering Artsakh

I have spent time traveling and photographing within contested territories. I didn't expect to discover that some of the most consequential borders I would encounter were not between countries, but between people and participation.

For much of my artistic practice, I have worked in places where borders are disputed, where sovereignties are contested, and where questions of sovereignty shape everyday life. As an Indigenous person from the United States, I have also understood that borders are never simply lines drawn across maps. They are histories, systems of power, and ongoing negotiations about land, belonging, and identity. What has changed over the past several years is not my understanding of national borders, but my awareness of the countless smaller borders which define our everyday lives.

After my brain injury, I began encountering thresholds I had rarely experienced so directly. Some were physical. Buildings assumed bodies that could climb stairs without hesitation. Public events assumed everyone could tolerate noise, crowds, or long periods without rest. Others were institutional. It took me two and a half years to find a neurologist who could support my recovery. Access to healthcare became its own border—not because care did not exist, but because reaching it required navigating systems that were often difficult to enter.

As an immigrant, I also found myself living inside another set of thresholds: residence permits, application forms, appointments, legal requirements, and years of waiting. I began to realize that participation is rarely determined by desire alone. More often, it is determined by the conditions that make participation possible.

I have never believed thresholds to be neutral. What changed was my understanding of where they exist. I had traveled in and out of borders between nations. I hadn't expected to encounter them in waiting rooms, medical systems, application forms, public events, or common interactions. Every threshold is designed, and every design reflects an assumption about the person expected to cross it.

A staircase assumes a body that climbs. An event assumes a nervous system that can tolerate hours of stimulation. A healthcare system assumes that appropriate care is equally accessible to everyone. A deadline assumes that time unfolds similarly for everyone. These assumptions become so ordinary that they often disappear from view. Yet, they quietly determine who participates with ease, who must ask for accommodations, and who decides it is easier not to come at all.

Belonging has long been central to my artistic practice. As an Indigenous person, I have always understood belonging as something strongly connected to land, history, community, and sovereignty. My work in contested territories simply deepened that understanding. What has expanded over the past several years is my awareness that belonging is equally determined by the structures that govern participation.

The accessibility of a building influences it, the design of a healthcare system, the requirements of a residency permit, the expectations placed upon a body, or the assumptions embedded within an application form. Institutions quietly communicate who they were designed for, and in doing so, they also communicate who must work harder to participate.

For that reason, I find myself asking two questions simultaneously. The first is one I have carried throughout my practice: What does it mean to belong? The second has emerged through my own experiences of disability, immigration, and recovery: What kinds of thresholds are we continuing to build, both known and unknown, and who are they designed for?

Thresholds are never simply obstacles. They reveal the values embedded within a society. Some invite participation. Others demand proof, endurance, documentation, or permission. Some are almost invisible until we encounter them ourselves. Others are unmistakable, determining who receives healthcare, who crosses a border, who finds safety, and, in many parts of the world, who survives.

If movement is one of the most fundamental expressions of life, then perhaps the question is not only who gets to move, but what kinds of thresholds we choose to create—and what those choices reveal about who we believe belongs.