DENDROCHRONOLOGY OF UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION | 2018

Immigration is integral to the identity of the United States, which has grown in both population and diversity thanks to new arrivals from around the globe. The Dendrochronology of United States Immigration is a visualization project that uses arboreal metaphors to illustrate the contributions of immigrants to the country's growth. In this project, immigrants and native-born individuals are represented as cells within tree rings, each capturing a decade of population growth.

The project mimics the natural process of dendrochronology, generating tree rings where each ring represents a decade, and each cell corresponds to 100 immigrants from a specific region. The direction and color of each cell reflect the immigrant's geographical origin, with rings skewed toward the East indicating immigration from Europe, and rings skewed to the South signifying more immigration from Latin America. The thickness of the rings shows the volume of immigration, while the color represents different cultural-geographical regions.

Data for this project comes from millions of samples from the U.S. Census, dating back to 1790. This micro-data provides information on the state of residence, age, and country of origin for each person. The project uses this data to estimate the number of immigrants arriving each decade, and it is implemented in Processing, utilizing a physics engine to deposit cells and allow them to interact.

Trees can live for hundreds or even thousands of years, with their rings forming slowly over time. This tree metaphor reflects how history shapes the present, much like how immigration has influenced the United States. Every immigrant leaves a mark on the country's trunk, emphasizing how all cells contribute to the tree's growth, and serving as a reference for how we can spatially organize immigration data.

Collaborative work with Pedro M. Cruz, John Wihbey, and Avni Ghael (Northeastern University).

Exhibitions

2024 · Picturing Immigration: Preservation in Progress

Museum of the City of New York, New York, United States

2021 · Comunidades Visibles: The Materiality of Migration

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, United States

2020 · Seeing Numbers

Brickbottom Artists Association, Somerville, United States

2019 · Who We Are

Museum of the City of New York, New York, United States

2019 · III Trans-disciplinary & Trans-national Festival of Art & Science

University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada