This project grows out of personal experience of dealing with the UK Visas & Immigration department. The student visa application process is usually described as a simple administrative step, but when I went through it myself, I realised how much work hides behind that description. The whole process was made of small and repetitive tasks, long waiting times, and constant efforts to prove my identity. Every document I prepared took far more emotional and mental energy than it appeared to. Because of this, I wanted to find a physical form that could show the invisible labour involved.
I decided to turn the preparation journey into a handmade book. The pages follow the key stages I experienced: receiving the university offer, preparing for the language test, collecting financial documents, taking the TB test, and finally submitting the visa application. For each stage, I used my real documents, and having censored sensitive information, I cut them into thin strips and wove them together with different fabrics. The slow and repeated movements of weaving and stitching reflect how the border regime reduces a person into pieces of data and highlights how it weaponises the politics of waiting. The book is both a personal record and a way to question the lack of transparency and fairness in the visa system.
Some of the theoretical ideas behind this project come from New Keywords: Migration and Borders and Kristin Surak’s book The Golden Passport: Global Mobility for Millionaires. Surak shows how global mobility often depends on wealth: wealthy individuals can gain citizenship through investment, while ordinary applicants must prove themselves again and again through documents and waiting. Her writing helped me see how my frustration and anxiety were part of a larger structure in which the applicant is always in a weaker position. Visually, I was inspired by Louise Bourgeois’ textile book Ode à l’Oubli, where sewing and fabric become a way of carrying personal memory. I also looked at Julie VonDerVellen’s woven paper works, in which printed text is cut apart and rebuilt into textile-like surfaces. Her method suggested a way to make documents felt rather than simply read. By weaving my own visa documents, I wanted to show the hidden labour, uncertainty, and emotional weight behind the application.
The border system turns people into numbers and categories. Offer letters, language scores, CAS numbers, bank statements and medical records all look neutral, but they hide the amount of work needed to produce them. Through cutting, weaving and stitching, my project breaks this sense of neutrality. The documents become unreadable fragments, yet they still carry the tension of the original process. Reassembling them by hand becomes a way of reclaiming my own story from an impersonal system. The softness and slowness of the handmade book contrasts with the digital and impersonal nature of the visa process.
