When you look at a house,
What do you see?
The work
Building in America is a multimedia project that looks at the housing crisis and the intersections of community and systemic issues around immigration and economic disparity. Using her family's experience in construction in Florida, Gabriela unpacks the complex role of immigrant labor in the industry.
With a persistent housing shortage today of two to three million homes, Passos’ project prompts consideration of how much worse the housing shortage would be without the 3.33 million immigrants, documented and undocumented, critical to residential construction.
The artist
Gabriela Passos is a multimedia journalist dedicated to translating the lived experiences of Latin American immigrants in the United States through documentary photography and visual storytelling. As a first-generation Brazilian-American artist, she is committed to bilingual journalism not just about immigrant communities but for them.
Her path to documentary work was shaped by deeply immersive experiences, including time spent in Cameroon and two years of nomadic living in her van across the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. The solitude of these periods has informed her understanding of isolation, reinforcing a fundamental truth: at our core, we all seek connection and community.
Current installation can be found at the Corcoran School of the Arts in Washington DC until May 16th
