Michelle Weiqiu Song MA ’19: How US Immigration Gets the “Extraordinary Artist” Visa Very Wrong
Protesters outside the American Embassy in London rallying against the entry ban on nationals from select countries. Photo by Alisdare Hickson via Flickr
International artists who wish to work in the United States can do so by applying for the O-1 visa, a category for nonimmigrant, temporary “aliens with extraordinary abilities” who operate in fields such as art, athletics, or education. The visa application, which demands documents, testimonials, and cash, “is an ultimate form of gatekeeping that determines whether one is considered an artist at all,” writes Song, a graduate of the Center for Curatorial Studies and researcher at the OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College. “The O-1 visa is one instance of a more privileged temporary-worker category that facilitates US extraction of global talents. Yet, like most other visa applications, it is as mind-numbing as it is nerve racking, particularly for artists who are less recognized in the English-speaking art world.”
Post Date: 06-29-2021
Post Date: 06-29-2021