CARRIER BAG

New works by Michael Pribich

On View: June 7–July 13, 2025
Opening Reception: June 7, 5–8 PM
Artist & Curator Talk: Saturday, July 12, 3 PM

"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."  
–Indigenous proverb of the Haida People

Transmitter proudly presents Carrier Bag, a new series of sculptures by Michael Pribich. Deploying the found object as a beacon on the state of current affairs between the human condition and the social space. Built from parts and suitcases, each work is embellished beyond their state of disrepair. Pribich confronts these objects, reflecting on their journey, their stake in our environment, and the burden they carry. Marked with time and age, each carrier bag is complicated by its history, journey through New York City, its hazards, and ultimate disuse. 

For Carrier Bag, Pribich takes on the subject of movement due to labor,  migration, and environmental impact. The carts and suitcase wheels are missing and broken, devoid of their only purpose, to carry belongings. Broken cases have become a common phenomenon across lower Manhattan, where Pribich lives and works, particularly in recent years, as the impact of massive population movements has left its mark. Since the spring of 2022, New York City has received over 229,000 asylum seekers, activating mutual aid groups, city services, and donation centers.(1) Oftentimes arriving with a suitcase, but for many folks arriving only with a shirt on their back. Parallels can be drawn between the long history of immigration through New York City, from Ellis Island to the present day. Still, xenophobic media severely antagonize asylum seekers and immigrants, especially the global majority of Black and Brown bodies. As more people made New York City their home, more suitcases continued to appear, and Pribich collected them from the trash and sidewalk sales. 

As a vital reference point, Pribich has investigated long-standing patterns of immigration through his work. The central sculpture, Move, takes the form of a line, in reference to people on the move, with suitcases standing tall and dignified, yet tethered together, immobile and discarded. The zippers, metal buckles, metal bolts, and handles reflect light off their silver patina, emphasizing ordinary details. Each suitcase takes on a personality of its own; some have broken wheels and paper tags from unknown trips. One of them, at the very end of the line, the tallest and widest, has hand-sewn stitches that mended the loose fabric lining. Across the top, a steel rod with inserted caps, plastic and glass bottles with labels that spell out their geographical origins: Fiji, Mexico, Italy, or Poland Springs. Simultaneously decorative and restrictive, the water bottles highlight the interlocking consequences between extractive water industries, climate disasters, and migration crises.

The standing sculpture, Salt of the Earth, assembled from a broken cart and strands of long, hair-like brown ribbons, stands tall, secured on a salt lick. Pribich cleverly assembles and further exemplifies the embodiment of human forms from urban discards. Considering human conditions that chip away at precious resources, such as salt and water, and even gold, which is wrapped in adornment. Similarly, Milwaukee Man stands upright and distinct, built to endure heavy labor, now embellished with silver and red ribbon tassels. Pribich carefully considers the body: the body that labors away, that erodes, that breaks, and is often disregarded. This cart takes on multiple identities as a broken hand-truck, beginning with the ubiquitous red Milwaukee tool logo reflecting the word born from the Anishinaabemowin word minowakiing, meaning “good earth” and place today known as Milwaukee, Wisconsin.(2) These anthropomorphic sculptures stand as giants and guardians; they steward movement, although immobile, they shimmer, and although heavy, they stand with grace.  

Similar to the sculptures, the maroon-red oxidized wall creates a backdrop for the installation, reflecting the tones of skin color, sunsets, and arid earth. The wall transforms into a mural, an architectural frame, and a border. For Pribich, the accent wall is a signature of sorts that encapsulates his practice as an intersection of cultural production, taking up space, and honoring the sculptural bodies and viewers.   

Pribich found inspiration forthe works is Carrier Bag in the essay, The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, by Ursula K Le Guin where she proposes that humanity’s first creations must have been a recipient, a carrier bag of sorts, and therefore whatever we decide to carry defines our values, priorities, our surroundings, and our homes as she beautifully reflects: 

“If it is a human thing to do to put something you want, because it's useful, edible, or beautiful, into a bag, or a basket, or a bit of rolled bark or leaf, or a net woven of your own hair, or what have you, and then take it home with you, home being another, larger kind of pouch or bag, a container for people, and then later on you take it out and eat it or share it or store it up for winter in a solider container or put it in the medicine bundle or the shrine or the museum, the holy place, the area that contains what is sacred, and then the next day you probably do much the same again—if to do that is human, if that's what it takes, then I am a human being after all.”(3)

–Eva Mayhabal Davis, Curator

Michael Pribich is a visual artist living in New York City and Jalisco, México, with artist Esperanza Cortés. He was born and raised in Northern California. He is interested in the artist’s role in advancing ideas that lead to continual growth and change. His work uses labor to address themes of displacement and migration in both rural and urban settings. Pribich has participated in exhibitions and artist residencies throughout the world including: Project Row Houses, Ucross, Pine Meadow Ranch Center for Art and Agriculture, Nars Residency, Ali Youssefi Project Residency, and 360 Xochi Quetzal He has worked on art projects in the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Xinjiang, Uzbekistan, and Hong Kong. He has completed video and sculpture projects in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and India. www.michaelpribich.com @michael_pribich 

“Movement as becoming. 
One billion people moving on the planet right now”
–Michael Pribich

(1) “Mayor Adams Announces New Round of Migrant Shelter Closures, Including One of City’s Largest Facilities, after 27 Straight Weeks of Shelter Census Declines.” NYC, 10 Jan. 2025,
(2) Jurss, Jacob C. “Indigenous Milwaukee in the Age of Empire.” Encyclopedia of Milwaukee, 15 Apr. 2020, emke.uwm.edu/entry/indigenous-milwaukee-in-the-age-of-empire/.
(3)  Le Guin, Ursula K., and Lee Bul. The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction. Ignota Books, 2020.