On May 10, 1869, the telegraph tapped out “−·· −−− −· ·” (DONE) to announce the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad. In Andrew J. Russell’s defining photograph of the moment, the Chinese laborers who made up nearly 90% of the Sierra Nevada workforce are simply gone. Only two have ever been identified in the crowd by Stanford researchers: one turned away, the other hidden beneath a raised hat. Were they camera shy? Had they already left the ceremony for a celebratory dinner? Or were they deliberately excluded due to anti-Chinese sentiment?

I step into that silence. Traveling through the American West, I place my own body into the landscapes defined by their labor and the violence they endured: the rail lines, the irrigation networks, and the ruins of Chinatowns and mines. Through blurred self-portraits, I adopt the visual language of the ghost and insist that the land remains haunted by those who built it.