→ Non Alien Box

How can we leave traces of “non-alien” stories in this city?

As international students and members of a marginalized group, we experience a deep and urgent desire to express ourselves. Immersed in a cutthroat job market, we’ve endured prolonged internship periods, overwhelming workloads, and unforgiving hiring standards. Yet, despite our efforts, visa restrictions have made job transitions difficult, often resulting in long-term underpayment and undervaluation of our labor.

Still, many of us work hard, quietly contributing to the life of this city. But because of the temporary nature of our immigration status, our presence often disappears without a trace—unrecorded and unnoticed.

We chose to begin this project with a seemingly ordinary object: the now-defunct San Francisco Examiner newspaper boxes. Once carriers of public information, these urban relics have been transformed into vessels for our own “classified ads,” designed based on real experiences. Through humor and absurdity, these ads reveal the reality of how marginalized identities are devalued, forced to sell labor in order to survive.

This repurposed newspaper box is both a container of stories and an art installation embedded in the fabric of everyday urban life. It collects and presents the often-overlooked voices of international students, short-term workers, and others who exist at the margins of “non-resident alien” identity.

Within the context of an art school exhibition, the box is easily recognized as an art object—a deliberate anomaly. Viewers are drawn in, curious to read what’s inside. But when placed in public space, it returns to the street as a familiar urban object, blending seamlessly into the city's landscape.

This shift in context allows the Non Alien Box to function as both a subtle intervention and a pointed inquiry into visibility and power. It challenges the question: who truly belongs in this city? It is also a way for us to leave our own mark.