Change Order

Change Order is a film that does not involve a film; but rather everything around it. A micro-history of a warehouse in Glendale, Queens threads through the work, questioning ideas surrounding means of productions; value; and the re-distribution of value.

When you look into a building you can see a world.The artist's friend Serena Chang has her studio and art production business in part of the warehouse; in the second half of it her family runs their family hosiery business, Sheerly Touch-ya. Serena’s father, James Chang started the New York-based hosiery business in the 1990s shortly after immigrating from Taiwan. Up until his recent retirement, the business was a true family endeavor: James designed the packaging and graphics himself by hand. Some of the products were shot on models in Taiwan, others James shot himself in the business’ warehouse in Glendale, Queens.

When Nguyen began working with Serena Chang on material for Change Order for an exhibition at the Whitney Independent Study Program, she asked her for images and documents from the archive of her family hosiery business that are outside of the final packaged products that line the shelves of dollar stores in New York. This material, conserved by the artist and Whitney resources, in conversation with material from Shisanwu’s art production archive, create a portrait of a place in which issues surrounding immigration, labor, aesthetics, and authorship change and shift, their complexity never easily resolved.