The key elements of electronics, such as semiconductors and display components, are produced in “clean rooms”—spaces where environmental conditions, including dust levels, are strictly controlled. However, workers in these clean and sanitized environments are often exposed to chemicals that pose serious health risks. Unlike immediate catastrophes, illnesses caused by prolonged chemical exposure often go unnoticed and develop slowly over generations. What was that sour-yet-sweet odor? Does “clean” simply mean maximizing production stability, while neglecting bodily safety? Ironically, it is only the memories of affected bodies and the faint traces of substances that pass through these clean rooms that reveal the invisible toxicity and dangers of these cutting-edge industrial sites.
Colorless, Odorless follows the work records and archives of victims of semiconductor biohazards to trace the scents and movements of substances that cameras cannot capture. In doing so, it amplifies the voices of Asian women and migrant workers—those most exposed and vulnerable. Testimonies of the past are layered onto current symptoms, and the disaster repeats itself in other bodies and other places. As multinational corporations relocate factories to developing countries—seeking not only lower labor costs but also looser safety regulations and enforcement—industrial disasters are globally displaced. Perhaps the future is not an abstract number, but something deeply entangled with specific bodies and materials. As high-tech industries accelerate the globalization of risk and exploitation through increasingly outsourced production, Colorless, Odorless attempts to map a terrain of solidarity among victims, activists, and workers’ unions in the face of these ongoing harms.