“OS” is the code word criminals use for phone scams in which they pretend to be a relative in distress. I'm interested in youth poverty issues, and in the course of my research, I learned that poverty drives some youth into OS phone scams and similar criminal acts. This fact raised questions in my mind and piqued my curiosity.

Around the same time, I was contacted by the police, who let me know that my mother's name was on a list criminals had prepared of potential marks. That got me even more interested. I can understand the frustration of impoverished young people, but I can also imagine the feelings of the scam victims and their families. I began this work because I thought it possible to examine society surrounding OS scams from these two opposing perspectives.

The work consists of photographs of places, people, and abstract images. I wanted to take pictures of real crime scenes, but I thought it would be difficult to identify them as crime locations. So I took inspiration for my photos from photos and videos from news reports and secondary sources such as wire stories and movies, as well as online maps, to imagine what happened at the scenes. Therefore, my work is a mixture of truth and fabrication.

I was able to interview former scammers and their victims, but I decided not to photograph them. All the faces, young or old, that appear in the work are photos of myself that I manipulated with an app. OS phone scams are dubbed “invisible” crimes or “staged” crimes. Just as the scammers play different characters on the other end of the phone, I too became different characters in the work that resemble, in turn, victims and perpetrators.

Another source for my abstract images was the reality that it is always low-ranking gang members who get nabbed for the “invisible” crime of OS phone fraud; the gang masterminds are never caught. The leaders print any incriminating notes or documents on water-soluble paper that they can quickly disintegrate in water if they sense the police are closing in on them. Because they destroy any evidence, it is impossible to tell who is connected to whom or who ordered the people to play the roles of “cash collectors” or “cash withdrawers” in the scams. As a way of portraying these invisible connections, I printed faces and places on water-soluble paper and then photographed the paper actually disintegrating to add abstract images to the work.

My original work is a book, so it flows sequentially at a speed fixed by the turning of pages. I structured my exhibit to convert the sequence seen in the book in such a way that it could be represented on a wall.

Each piece appears to be placed squarely at the viewer, but when viewed at a distance, all the pieces look crooked, casting shadows that make them look warped. If you look closely at the small portraits, they are incoherent; from the left, the person appears young, but from the right, the person appears elderly. Depending on where you stand, you are on the victim's side, on the perpetrator's side, or in a position of indifference — representing how society's views on OS phone scams diverge.