Rosaline Dou
The Choice of a Zygote Artist
When the opportunity of “Optional Practical Training” is offered, there aren’t really any options. I can’t focus on art when survival demands I beg for “practical” labor.
As a zygote, I was offered no womb to grow
When will I be born?
When will my work deem “related”?
Who decides when a zygote artist emerges?
And why must I wait to be born?
My Zygote Artist Declaration
I am a zygote artist, not yet born. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) decrees that I, an F-1 student, may seek Optional Practical Training (OPT), a temporary employment authorization “directly related” to my art degree. I may labor part-time (at least 20 hours weekly) or full-time, provided it’s “directly related.” I cannot just make work; it’s not “employment.” I cannot only join a residency; it’s not “authorized.”
All jobs must be art-world-approved, pitting me against art history, curatorial, cultural studies graduates with roots I lack. My art practice is framed as an addition—a labor squeezed between the hours of survival, a side effect of compliance. Seeking professional development, I compete with “emerging artists,” those who already possess recognition and presence.
Which confirms: I am a zygote artist.
“MAYBE WE’LL BE FAMOUS WHEN WE DIE.” Street view at the corner of Orchard and Rivington Streets, New York. Photo: Rosaline Dou.
You are either a Zygote Artist or a witness.
Either way, you are all here. We want to know: what role can you take in this shared, confounding, and still/possible reality?
Eligibility Requirements for Zygote Artist
A Zygote Artist is a non-born creative entity in the gestational phase of cultural production, whose existence is governed by the following conditions:
- Must not yet be born as an artist in any officially recognized jurisdiction.
- Must exist in a suspended state of emergence, orbiting institutional orbitals such as “recent graduate,” “(un)paid intern,” “art worker,” or “cultural laborer.”
- Must not have achieved “emerging artist” status as defined by institutional funds, open calls, or awards.
- Must carry within them the desire to be born—a yearning that is both ineffable and bureaucratically inadmissible.
Note: Residencies, exhibitions, and fellowships may contribute to your perceived artistic development, but do not count toward OPT compliance. Conceptual labor is not a form of authorized presence.
If you are a Witness, you have seen what systems do to people. You’ve felt the static. You’ve held the question: WHAT NOW?
This creative writing piece adopts the official language of USCIS guidelines on OPT eligibility, reframed through the eligibility assessment and self-declaration of a “zygote artist.” It reflects on the shared precarity of the U.S. post-graduate visa process—determining when one is deemed “eligible”—and of entering the art world, where the question becomes: when is one recognized as an artist?