Sewing Machine
Margerita Cabrera (°1973, Monterrey, Mexico) doesn’t shun social commentary. Her work focuses on socio-political subject matter in an attempt to dissect different aspects of migration. Where the Mexican migration to the US is concerned, more often than not this means violence and a complex economic relation between the two countries. Cabrera creates objects from materials whose significance shifts away from their original context. Here, she made a sewing machine out of fabric – an overt reference to the clandestine sewing ateliers in the south of the US, whose staff consists nearly solely out of illegal Mexican immigrants. By emphasizing the machine rather than the human employing it, Cabrera makes a statement about how the industry uses these labor forces as mere machines.
Cabrera often collaborates with local communities in order to increase the social consciousness surrounding the working conditions of Mexican laborers.
