Jen Liu part of group exhibition Inherited Labor at The Border Gallery, New York
Jen Liu part of group exhibition Inherited Labor at The Border Gallery, New York
The Border Gallery is presents Inherited Labor, a group exhibition that continues its series examining immigrant labor, this time focusing on reproductive work. Through the work of five artists: Daisy Patton, Jen Liu, Gabino A. Castelan, Anna Fabricius, and Zac Hacmon, reproductive labor is explored through gestures, routines, and rituals, which transmit knowledge, skills, and values, transforming workspaces into sites of cultural and biological continuity. These practices form a living archive—preserved in patterns, stories, and acts of care—that sustains families materially, emotionally, and culturally across generations.
Jen Liu examines how erased histories persist as haunting presences in the present. Hello Hello Hung Out To Dry (2025), from her ongoing project MERCURY, examines the lives of nineteenth-century Chinese sex workers in the Americas and the resonances of their exploitation with today’s digital gig economy. Blending narrative, performance, AI-generated imagery, and alchemical motifs, Liu employs mercury as a metaphor for memory loss, bodily dissociation, and fluid identity. The portrait of a woman, with black hair silvered by mercury, eyes half-open, and facial features formed by hanging organic shapes—suggests a
fragmented body. To the right, a delicate, elongated hand underscores fluidity while alluding to the fragility of undervalued reproductive and sexual labor.