Project Journal

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1/19/2026 17:54

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Behind VA Shadows began from lived experience. When I was working as a Visitor Assistant, I became aware of how essential frontline museum workers are—and how easily they fade into the background. The name “VA Shadows” reflects this contradiction: bodies that are constantly present, yet rarely centered, acknowledged, or protected.

Although I no longer work inside museums, my relationship to institutional art continues—as an artist, visitor, cultural worker, and through my current work with immigrant communities. This distance has sharpened my perspective rather than diminished it. It allows me to hold museums with care while still asking difficult questions about who is seen, who is supported, and who is asked to endure.

Field Study of the Leaning Bodies/Traces is an ongoing installation developed through Behind VA Shadows in collaboration with invited curators. Each curator selects a color, realized as a vertical band on the gallery wall. These fields are interrupted by subtle marks at hip and shoulder height—points of contact where Visitor Assistants lean for brief moments of relief during extended shifts. During each installation, museum workers are invited to use charcoal to leave bodily traces, transforming private gestures of rest into a visible, shared record.

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This project is informed by conversations and research that look closely at who makes up the museum workforce today. Studies such as those produced by Museums Moving Forward have been deeply influential in helping me envision a more just museum future—one that acknowledges how race, gender, age, and labor position shape workplace experience. Their work highlights that younger workers, workers of color, and women make up a significant portion of the museum field, particularly in frontline roles, while also revealing ongoing structural gaps in care, representation, and long-term sustainability.

Advocating for Visitor Assistants and other frontline workers feels more urgent than ever. These roles are often entry points into the museum world, especially for immigrants, first-generation cultural workers, and those navigating precarious labor conditions. The traces left behind—on walls, on bodies, on careers—are not incidental. They are evidence of care, endurance, and commitment to public culture.

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Alongside this installation, Behind VA Shadows has gathered reflections from museum workers across the Greater Boston area, creating space for firsthand voices to sit beside institutional narratives and national research. Together, these materials ask not for a single solution, but for sustained attention.

Field Study of the Leaning Bodies/Traces invites viewers to slow down, notice what usually blends into the background, and consider how museums might move forward by listening more closely to the people who hold them up.