Flowers for Immigration
2017
Digital photography and vinyl on painted wall

Flowers for Immigration is a participatory, photography-based project created by artist and designer Lizania Cruz. It collects the personal stories of undocumented flower
workers from New York City, told through
their flower arrangements. Every day these workers make up bouquets for other people
to use as a means of expressing themselves.
With this project, Cruz aims to give the
same opportunity of self-expression to the shop workers. She invites them to make
their own flower arrangements as a response to Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant measures. Flowers for Immigration tests how to create empathy for these workers, who are subject
to significant bias, without revealing
their faces. The photographed arrangements thus seek to amplify their voices through
the visual language of flowers.