Nicole Coson’s ‘In Passing’: Diving into the Intricate Relationship between Cross-Country Migration and Shipping Crates

London-based Filipino artist Nicole Coson has exhibited a series of on canvas prints titled In Passing. To make the series of works, she had painted the surfaces of over twenty used shipping crates and imprinted them onto canvas. The results are either large scale canvases with shipping carts stacked on-top of one another or arranged in such a way that they look like city maps, or small scale works of individual one side surface print of a single shipping crate.

Reflecting on her own experience and the experience of other Filipinos who make up one of the world’s largest diaspora populations, Coson’s shipping crates chart what the item means for people who use them to pack up all their belongings and leave their home country. Each canvas is meant to empower and honour the experiences of immigrants from the past, present, and future, in their tumultuous plights to search for a better life. This is why 'In Passing' by Nicole Coson is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of Reduced Inequalities.

As of 2024, the Commission on Filipinos Overseas has reported that there are approximately 10 million Filipinos overseas, 50 per cent of whom reside in the Americas. Many of this broad diaspora are Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW), blue collar essential workers who are mostly women aged between 30 to 34. Despite these numbers, Filipinos abroad are stereotyped as low skill workers, taking on home-making jobs in Western countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom. This racist stereotype often robs Filipino workers abroad of significant working opportunities, despite the fact that they have packed all of their belongings into a shipping crate and braved the long journey.

Coson exemplifies this sentiment by deliberately choosing to represent the Filipino diaspora as used shipping crates whose surfaces she stamps onto canvas. She made this choice to show that despite the shipping crates being an object that comes a plenty, each object is different and tells its own story, much like the people of the Filipino diaspora community.

Jeppe Ugelvig, the exhibition’s curator, summarizes the pieces by writing, “Just as the density of cities is an endless source of storytelling, one can get lost pondering the origin of the objects that journey across the global supply chain, its people, and its commodities forever on the move.”

Nicole Coson’s In Passing skillfully captures the intricate relationship between cross-country migration and the humble shipping crate, transforming it into a symbol of the Filipino diaspora’s resilience and individuality. Through her art, Coson honours the unique stories of immigrants who pack their lives up, all to seek better opportunities abroad despite pervasive stereotypes and multitudes of other challenges.

Find out more about In Passing by Nicole Coson and their other pieces by checking their Instagram on @nicolecoson.