About this artwork
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Photography and Media
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Artist
- Joel Sternfeld
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Title
- Gateway National Recreation Area, Rockaway Peninsula, Queens, New York, from the series "On This Site: Landscape in Memoriam"
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Place
- United States (Artist's nationality)
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Date
- Made 1993
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Medium
- Chromogenic print
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Inscriptions
- Inscribed and signed recto, on mount, lower right, below image, in black ink: "Gateway National Park, Rockaway Peninsula, Queens, New York. (September 1993) / 1/7 Joel Sternfeld"; unmarked verso Almost 300 illegal Chinese immigrants struggled against the pounding surf to reach the shore of the United States on the night of June 6, 1993. Ten died of drowning or hypothermia; the rest escaped or were taken into custody. The immigrants had endured four and a half months of brutal conditions in transit before their vessel, the Golden Venture, hit a sandbar 200 yards off this beach. They were crammed into a twenty-by-forty-foot hold; food and water were scarce; sanitation conditions were subhuman. Of those arrested, forty-seven were deported to China, thirty were granted asylum, and forty-six were released. At the end of 1995, 147 were still in federal custody. Lee Peng Fei, the suspected mastermind of the failed voyage, had demanded $30,000 from each would-be immigrant. He was arrested in Bangkok in November 1995. From the series, On This Site: Landscape in Memoriam
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Dimensions
- Image/paper: 47.5 × 60.2 cm (18 3/4 × 23 3/4 in.); Mount: 71.3 × 82.8 cm (28 1/8 × 32 5/8 in.)
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Credit Line
- Acquired from the Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University, through an Anonymous Gift
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Reference Number
- 1997.279
Extended information about this artwork
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.
