Bed Checks

Dates

2018 - Ongoing
Author

Olga Fe
Topics Social Issues, Contemporary Issues, Daily Life

Bed Checks borrows its title from a tactic of unannounced home inspections deployed by immigration authorities. The project began as a response to bureaucratic scrutiny of our marriage.

Bed Checks borrows its title from a tactic of unannounced home inspections deployed by immigration authorities. The project began as a response to bureaucratic scrutiny of our marriage - a marriage between a citizen and a non-citizen. Like all mixed citizenship couples, we were suspected by default. To prove our innocence, a sceptical bureaucracy expected us to construct, and then document, a fiction of a relationship that adheres to an implied standard of heteronormative validity.

© Olga Fe - Image from the Bed Checks photography project

Official processing Pratya and Olga 's documents. The application process costs thousand of dollars because of the investigation into the couple's "true relationship" conducted by the USCIS.

Beach landscape and security camera inside an immigration officer's cubicle. Photography is strictly forbidden; even as the immigration authorities rifle through our intimate photos, we are not allowed to question them.

Pratya and Olga embrace in a cheap motel in LA. Traveling together is an important way to prove the legitimacy of one's relationship to immigration authorities. Couples who can't afford to travel together are at a disadvantage.

Pratya and Olga in their room

Pratya constantly worries whether the evidence of their relationship will be sufficient for the USCIS.

An apple with an imprint of Olga's teeth

Pratya places arm on Olga's head.

The view from their aparment window. During the lockdown, many people lit up fireworks in the street. but Pratya was afraid to participate to avoid even a minor encounter with the police.

Pratya and Olga's windows at night.

Cracked window in our apartment. We are afraid to ask our landlord to fix it because we need him to confirm to immigration authorities that we live in the same apartment.