Arts-Based Research: Making the Invisible Visible

Reviewing primary sources, available archives, and academic literature suggested new questions—and possible answers—about the plights and successes of Chinese workers on the Transcontinental Railroad. But artmaking differs from reviewing literature because it entails interacting objects and materials. This interaction, both the constraints and the possibilities, open new avenues of dialogue, discovery, and documentation. The project leans into these Arts-Based Research (ABR) practices, which we define as a mode of qualitative inquiry that employs artistic processes and methods to describe, problem-solve, discover, explore, understand, represent, challenge, and examine practices of human experience and learning (Leavy 2015). ABR has emerged as an important qualitative methodological approach across different academic fields, offering transformative potential for the sharing and framing of academic topics. It encompasses research poetry, community music projects, comics and graphic novels, installation art, performance, and more.

Although arts-based research has been employed across many fields and media, we found particular inspiration in W. Radford’s ABR-informed practical theology, which applies theological principles to daily life (2020). Radford’s creative , arts-based approach to theological questions provides a model for addressing ethical, moral, and social issues via arts-based practice, as well as the potential to heal social and historical injustices. Radford suggests that the generative nature of creative arts-based practice enables deeper engagement with meaning-making, reflection, and lived experiences, especially in marginalized communities (Radford 2020: 66). Researchers can ‘explore,’ ‘play,’ and ‘fashion’ ethical inquiries through artistic practices that prioritize process over product. This open-ended approach –– rooted in imagination, embodiment, intuition, and interpretation (Radford 2020: 71) –– challenges the ‘static’ nature of ethical inquiry, thereby making the potential to heal more creative, dynamic, and participatory.

A similar open-ended perspective informs the arts-based “speculative methods,” that have become a hallmark of Georgetown University’s Technology Design Studio and the Communication Culture & Technology Program (Osborn et. al. 2017). These methods build upon an understanding of remix as generative, combinatorial, and dialogical, with a strong emphasis on iterative questioning and the iterative processes that underlie cultural and creative expression. Through the lens of remix culture, artworks contribute to an ongoing conversation:

 

Remix and hybrid works are articulations in forms that emerge from necessary, normative principles: (1) implementing generative
principles for open, recursive combinatoriality of constituent units within rule-governed meaning systems, (2) the intersubjective,
interindividual, and other-implicated grounds of meaning and expression (semiosis and dialogism as parallel generative processes),
 (3) the dialogic ground for appropriating and quoting other(s’) expression in ongoing interpretations of a culture’s artifacts through
 an intertextual/intermedial collective encyclopedia, and (4) generative processes that encode and externalize future-projecting
collective memory in structures of meaning destined for reuse in the continuum of cultural expression.
–– Irvine, 2014


Following the remix principles described by Martin Irvine (2014: 15-42), my project follows an ongoing, repetitive, and generative process of remixing. First, I remixed hand-drawn ghostly pixel patterns with poetries, songs, and Chinese migrant ‘names’ drawn from Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) payroll record sheets. Secondly, through combination and recombination, I utilized the art-making process to seek new connection, ask new questions, and new interpretations. Audiences also contribute to these processes by sharing and exploring through their responses to my work. Third, the works appropriate actual quotations and texts from various academic sources and archives, incorporating them into dialogues both within and across artworks. Finally, the project projects a future collective memory of Chinese railroad workers, who are currently unrecognized and unremembered. By publicly sharing these artworks—through installation, digital sharing, and ongoing AI generation—we hope that audiences will reflect upon the forgotten history of the U.S. Transcontinental Railroad and remember the Chinese railroad workers who have passed. In the future, we hope this project inspires others to create new artworks and responses that address historical injustices.
 

The models and inspirations that directly shaped the art-making process include:

  • Ayana V. Jackson: Jackson’s exhibition, ‘From the Deep,’ employs an ‘archival impulse’ to imagines an alternative living space and historical narrative for the descendants of African women thrown—or those who jumped—overboard during the Transatlantic Slave Trade (Jackson 2023). Jackson’s integrated immersive video, animation, installations sound, photography, and the scent of burned offerings to reimagine an untold historical story.

  • Zhi Lin: Zhi Lin has spent nearly a decade researching and remembering the lives of Chinese railroad workers. He is part of a group of artists and scholars working to weave lost histories and stories into American conversations (Joseph 2017). Zhi Lin’s mixed-media canvases, video installations, and watercolor paintings honor the 1,200 Chinese railroad workers who lost their lives in treacherous Sierra terrain near Donner Summit (Lin 2017; Lin 2019).

  • Ruth Simbao: Simbao’s artistic interventions challenge the dominant narratives of the TAZARA Memorial Park in Zambia. Working in collaboration with artists, Simbao seeks to spark dialogues concerning the construction of the TAZARA Railroad by Chinese and Zambian workers (Simbao 2023). In this case, the memorials highlight Chinese contributions, while the contributions of Zambian workers are typically occluded.

  • Kristin NG-Yang: NG-Yang’s ‘Diary of a Diasporic Chinese Artist in South Africa’ addresses the relationship between China and South Africa in a metaphoric way (NG-Yang 2023). Based on a Chinese song and a famous legend in which a bird falls in love with a fish, NG-Yang’s installation and performance entitled Bird/Fish addresses the desire to connect and communicate, while separated by the natural environment—much like Chinese railroad workers in the U.S. were separated from their homeland by the Pacific Ocean.

  • Chilton’s Altered Book-Making Process: Chilton’s alters the book-making process to repurposed existing books into new artworks using collage, painting, drawing, and other artistic techniques (Chilton 2023). This work emphasizes the notion that artistic expression can function as a mode of knowing and method of inquiry (McNiff 2011), and it was particularly influential my series of blackout poetries and the artwork entitled ‘Collapse’

Artwork Production

At the initial stage of my art project, I started with 11 hand-made ink line drawings (abstract patterns) which I had previously drawn. The physical materials included traditional Chinese ink, Color paper (dark blue, etc.), Strathmore sketch paper (8.5x11'' and 9x12''), brushes, Chinese painting pigments, water, Winsor & Newton Ink (White Blanco), Pentel Brush Pen, plastic tape, etc. As I continued to develop a series of works, I began to digitize these patterns. Then, I remixed them with the ‘names’ of Chinese immigrant workers from the C.P.R.R. payroll sheets using Miro Board, an online virtual whiteboard. Later, inspired by the technique of blackout style poetry, I began using iPad, Apple pen, and Procreate to make 18 blackout poetries using academic papers and books related to the U.S. Transcontinental Railroad and the Chinese migrant workers. I uploaded these 18 blackout poetries to the Miro Board to collectively form a Chinese character, ‘崩’ ('Collapse'). I also remixed the poetries with poems and ballads with local qiaoxiang (Cangdong) archives that show relevance to the stories, lived experiences, and hardships faced by the Chinese migrant railroad workers.


For the first round of artistic creation, I made nine pieces of abstract artwork: Moon, The East and the West, The Summer Triangle,   Collapse (崩), The Dead Zone/Suicide, Sierra Nevada Mountains, Reunion, Monsters Hid in the Desert, and Intersection (White Mobs). Each abstract artwork tells a Chinese immigrant worker’s story or a historical event in the history of the transcontinental railroad. For
my second round of artistic creation, I worked on 13 sub-themes, including The Root, Winter, Arson, Blood Wall in Prison, Rivers & Oceans, One-Eye Series, Desert, Basket Legend, Barefoot on the Muddy Road, China Wall, Truckee Town, The Coolie Trade (Disease & Mistreat), Nitroglycerine Explosion, the Chinese Cosmology (The Strike), and Ceramic Sherds . All the series artworks reflect upon the struggles and experiences of Chinese migrant workers. Each theme responds to a specific quote or story in archival literature or contemporary scholarship. I made a series of new artworks for each category, which include specific stories and hardships of Chinese migrant workers.


Regarding media and materials, I used Chinese ink, Toned Tan Papers, Procreate, Apple Pencil, Adobe Creative Cloud,  Midjourney, Pattern Brushes, etc. The use of modern digital technologies, including AI image generators, virtual whiteboard platforms, and 3D virtual exhibitions, extended the possibilities. This lead me to consider about what I wished to do but could not do in relation to what the Chinese railroad workers could do, even without the aid of modern technology. Chinese railroad workers in the 19th century used manual labor, basic tools, and raw physical effort to carve through mountains and lay rail tracks under extreme weather conditions—cold winters, scorching summers, and dangerous terrain. By contrast, digital tools, AI, and automation allow me to expand, iterate, and automate repetitive processes in order to pose more questions and tell more stories––but I have not left a historical and physical mark on the landscape as the workers’ did.


The goal of this project is to ‘see absence,’ ‘evoke presence’ (Hushka et al. 2017: 31), and make the ‘invisible’ Chinese immigrant workers ‘visible’ via abstract art. Since ‘it is impossible to represent a non-representational issue’ (Hushka et al 2017: 12), abstract art can give form and power to the unrecorded and unrepresented experiences of Chinese migrant workers. I hope my artwork challenges viewers to create a space for expressing and sharing their experiences in relation to the history at stake. By opening dialogue around these issues, particularly in a country as culturally diverse as America, which continues to overlook the history of Chinese migrant workers, we can engage in meaningful conversations and embark on a collective journey of knowing, learning from, understanding, and celebrating with each other.


The current article highlights a few key works that demonstrate the scope and variety of the larger project (Yu 2025b). The complete collection of project artworks can be found on ‘The Invisible Chinese Migrant Workers on the U.S. Transcontinental Railroad’ website, as well as the project’s 3D digital exhibition and related digital resources:

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Successful ‘works of art’ that cull from the archive are a ‘cure’ to the dangers of the past.
–– Russell 1999

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