Rome Alone is a collection of images created on a two-week trip in and around a bootleg factory in southern Taiwan in early 2014. The project gets its title from a fake Home Alone sweatshirt I found that was mistakenly spelled ‘Rome Alone’. Intrigued by the inadvertent poetry being created in these products, I interviewed and followed several of the factory workers on their breaks at night, accompanying them to various night markets and hawker stands while they milled about together and ate. Every few days I would develop my negatives and make small work prints from which the workers would choose their favorites. Using the selected images, I laid out a bookdummy which I had printed at the actual bootleg factory I was shadowing and bound the pages with rubber bands from the night markets most frequently visited by the workers. Afterward, I left copies of the dummy on the tables and stands at the night market for them to discover and flip through, bringing the project full circle.
An artist book produced by SSK Press to accompany the project was shown at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in Los Angeles for the 2014 LA Art Book Fair.