A community magazine showcasing extraordinary foreign talent in America
4N Consulate at MoMA PS1
During the 2025 Printed Matter Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1, we presented a new interactive exhibition titled 4N Consulate—a humorous and immersive take on the bureaucracy of the visa process. Participants were issued limited edition passports that required intake paperwork, taking new passport photos, and testing their luck in an interview with our 4N Agents. While no one was denied a passport, only a 12-sided dice could deem applicants “Extraordinary”—borrowing the terminology and qualifier that the United States Citizen and Immigration Services uses for foreigners applying for O-1 and EB-1 visas. Over the four-day fair, we processed nearly 200 4N Passports.
The Installation
The 4N Consulate was designed to evoke an official government office while still incorporating 4N’s tongue-in-cheek sense of humor. “Passport blue” colored our carpeting and our extraordinary dice, while wood finishes gave our consulate a nostalgic and timeless feel, placing visitors inside of a familiar liminal space—a waiting room, a government office, a foreign consulate.
4N Agents were given the best seat in the house—a bootleg Herman-Miller desk chair (sourced via Facebook Marketplace), while applicants were seated across in a vintage Mahjong chair, furthering the motif of game play and luck. For our wall art, we curated two pieces from past 4N contributors, interpreting them in the context of governance: a risograph print by Angel Tianying Yu titled The Telescope, originally featured in 4N Issue 2, and a painting by Susana Gomez, titled Ay luna sola, ay luna mala, from 4N Issue 3.
The Telescope depicts two different perspectives—one looks while the other is being looked at. We chose this piece because it parallels the power dynamics at play in our bureaucratic consulate. By hanging Yu’s piece above the row of waiting-room chairs, we invite visitors to consider the mixed emotions of curiosity and surveillance that immigrant artists are subjected to.
Behind the desk of the 4N agent was Gomez’s more foreboding piece, Ay luna sola, ay luna mala. In contrast to the playful energy of the installation, the painting anchors our operations as a consulate with more severity. The patina-colored silhouettes are reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty, complete with a crown and glowing light source. Its raised arms and hidden face are mysterious, much like the mystification of immigration processes that dictate the lives of many.
Our consulate flag hung highest in the room, continuing the caricature of a self-aggrandized hierarchy.
The Experience
Entering the 4N Consulate, a cacophony of sales pitches greeted visitors: “Are you in the market for a new passport?”
Guests were then invited to apply for our limited edition offering: a 4N travel document featuring curated artworks of past 4N contributors (and their travel tips) for a processing fee of $25. Once payment was collected, guests were given iPads to complete questionnaires. As the 4N UNNNNiverse does not have an official language, the forms were provided in English, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, and Thai, languages chosen by 4N team members.)
Once guests submitted their forms, one of the 4N Agent-Photographers, Panny Chayapumh, Megan Lee, or Wen-You Cai, took photos of the guests in front of the official 4N Consulate backdrop. The backdrop’s design was inspired by the guilloché patterns found on official government documents and currency used for tamper-proofing and forgery prevention. Guests that filed jointly for a passport would be photographed together. There were no limitations on who and how many people could apply for a single passport booklet, as long as the $25 processing fee was paid.
4N passport-seekers were subjected to arbitrary wait times determined by the agent presiding over their case, waiting in designated chairs against one side of the room. When the agent was ready, they tapped the metal bell—sometimes repeatedly—as they called out the names of applicants, further fueling the anxiety-inducing experience of being at the mercy of government processes.
Applicants would then shuffle around the crowded room to take the open seat opposite of the 4N Agent-Interviewers while visitors watched. Under public scrutiny, applicants would answer improvised questions: “What do you do for work? Have you won any awards in your field of work? Did you bring any press clippings with you? How long have you lived here, or elsewhere? What is your nationality? How do you plan to contribute to the 4N community?”
Our rotating cast of 4N Agent-Interviewers included visual and performance artist Sherly Fan featured in 4N Issue 2, 4N collaborator Oliver Yuan, 4N project manager Joyce Keokham, and 4N editor Kelly Rogers. Each agent brought their own persona and approach to the process. As applicants answered the interview questions, agents adhered their freshly-printed passport photo into the booklet and handwrote the information they submitted at the beginning of the process.
The last step was a game of luck–the roll of a 12-sided jumbo dice would determine the applicant’s status as either “ordinary” or “extraordinary.” The U.S. Department of Homeland Security declares "The O-1 nonimmigrant visa is for the individual who possesses extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics, or who has a demonstrated record of extraordinary achievement in the motion picture or television industry and has been recognized nationally or internationally for those achievements.”
As extraordinariness is a subjective qualifier, especially in the realm of arts, we designed a custom 12-sided dice for this segment of the process and invited applicants to roll the dice to determine their own fate—but not without advising them to take their time and think positive thoughts first.
Of the 12 possibilities, three faces read “Extraordinary,” another three read “Ordinary,” and the remaining six were reserved for “RFE,” the government-used acronym for “Request for Evidence.” We wanted the odds to reflect the experiences of current applicants going through this process in real time.
When an applicant landed on “Extraordinary,” agents would chime the desk bell, setting off a room of cheers. Rolling “Ordinary,” however, was our gentle equivalent of a quickly rejected application. The most common fate, an “RFE,” gave applicants an ordinary-for-now designation with the chance to have their status changed, so long as they could return before the 4N Consulate closed with specific supplemental documentation. Agents then stapled the impossible requests into the applicant’s passports.
Request for Evidence:
You are receiving this note because the Office of 4N Affairs deems you ORDINARY. Your status will remain as ORDINARY unless you are able to obtain the following document:
A verified video of you creating your work while an eagle sheds a single patriotic tear in the background.
Your response must be received by October 20, 2025.
After rolling the dice, the agent marked the passport with the appropriate stamp to conclude the process, and presented the newest member of the 4N Universe with their freshly-minted travel document.
4N Passport
The 4N Passport is an artful reimagining of what this travel document could look like, designed by 4N creative director Panny Chayapumh. We included the work of 10 artists across its pages, plus travel tips, all from creatives published in previous issues of 4N. The first page is customizable for the passport-holder, where their information, photo, and stamp would be placed during their interview.
Included artists: Mengru Zhou, Yanbin Zhao, Yuyang Cara Cai, Anh Lê, Susana Gomez, Ally Yanxiu Luo, Xinyi Yang, Renee Yu Jin, Vyolet Jin, and Jiayi Li.
Findings
Reactions to the 4N Consulate varied, from giggles, to gratitude for creating space to allow immigration discourse, to discomfort. Some visitors treaded cautiously, not wanting to jinx their fate. “Not for me, but thank you for showing others what we go through.” While others thought it might help them manifest positive outcomes: “Might as well try it twice.”
As we shared the Instagram stories of those who participated, we also asked them to share their thoughts on the experience.
Tish Nicholas: “I thought it was a cute and clever way to capture the process/a moment /the insane concept/so few people think about when it comes to those who literally have to gamble their futures, careers and talents for a shot to make it here in America. Watching the waiting, randomness, and acceptance of it all was hilarious and a little bit sad.”
Margo Dela Cruz: “As an American-born Filipino, I’m fortunate to not have to go through the intimidating visa interview process, which is notoriously known to be unfair and biased towards POC. Sitting in the leather chair at the wooden desk, I actually did feel a bit nervous! But the overall experience was friendly and well-meaning, and I had a lovely conversation about my design practice with the interviewer, and got a cute orange passport in the end. International classmates from my college get sent back to their country due to the US’s strict, corrupt laws, and I wish they could have a dignified experience that wasn’t so scary or dehumanizing. If white American citizens could go through this same process, I wonder if they would have empathy for immigrants who have to prove their worth just to exist.”
Abril: “I loved the experience—it allowed me to laugh about something that has shaped so much of my life. As someone who has seen friends and family go through the US immigration process, I know how expensive and emotionally draining it can be. I was privileged to have legal support taken care of for me, but I still experienced how disorienting and frustrating the system can be. When I first came on a TD visa, I was legally allowed to live here but not to work, which slowly eroded my mental health and self-esteem as a creative.
When the consulate officer asked why I wanted to stay, my answer was that I felt safer as a woman living here—which is ironic given the current political climate around women’s rights—but coming from Mexico, where the feminicide rate is heartbreakingly high, that choice felt urgent. And when asked why I was ‘extraordinary,’ my answer was that, as a Mexican woman artist, I want to show that Mexican artists can do more than just imitate Frida Kahlo—that we have diverse, contemporary voices that deserve space. I know I have a talent that can be perceived as ‘extraordinary,’ but I believe everyone is extraordinary in their own way—we all just want to be safe, to belong, and to be happy.
Immigration is a human right. People leave home in search of safety, opportunity, or simply fair pay, and even when you do everything ‘by the rules,’ you are always questioned. Immigrants live a half-life—half of your heart stays back home—and I am very aware of how my privilege, in my skin color, my education, and even my ability to speak English, makes that gap easier for me than for many others.”
Visitors also took creative liberties with some of their form responses:
- Our oldest 4N Passport holder was born in December 1717, and someone born in September 2040 visited from the future.
- Some new countries of origin we learned of: Land of Pleasure, Kirikirijin, Jupiter, Pangea, Happy Valley, Fridgeland, Hell, Outer Space
- Nationalities represented by 4N Passport holders: Albanian, American, Argentinian, Thai, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, South Korean, Singaporean, Senegalese, Russian, Pacific Islander, Mongolian, Mexican, Malaysian, Kenyan, Japanese, Jamaican, Italian, Irish, Iraqi, Indian, Chinese, Dominican, French, Finnish, Filipino, Estonian, Dutch, Croatian, Colombian, Canadian, Bulgarian, Brazilian, Australian, Egyptian
Hyperallergic’s Lakshmi Rivera Amin visited the consulate and mentioned us in her write-up Passports, Prints, and Protest at the NY Art Book Fair: “...the 4N Consulate is both absurdist and painfully realistic—a parody and a reality check in one. Each personalized faux-passport ‘travel document’ designed by artist Panny Chayapumh invites American citizens like me, who ‘don’t typically experience the exhausting, over-complicated process of obtaining travel visas or visiting foreign consulates,’ to confront the arbitrary nature of the immigration system.”