The Million(s) Bag Project is a lifelong work that began in 2020 and consists of drawing one bag for every Venezuelan migrant. As of August 28, 2025, I have created 511,970 drawings out of an estimated 9.1 million people who have left the country. Each day I draw a minimum of 250 bags as part of a daily performance that, throughout my lifetime, seeks to materialize a number that is constantly growing and almost impossible to reach.
The idea emerged during a meditation after reading Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction. The concept of the bag as one of humanity’s first inventions, combined with the Venezuelan migration crisis, led me to reflect on a moment that is both crucial and common to every migrant: deciding what to take to a new destination. That “bag” varies depending on circumstance—it might be a shipping container, several suitcases, or a single bag with only the essentials. Each one holds a personal story, a life contained.
This repetitive gesture is also an act of memory and mourning: a way of giving equal space and time to all those who have left, transforming abstract statistics into a visual, intimate, and tangible experience.
