Aliens without Extraordinary Ability is a research project by Xiaoji Song which aims at questioning the contemporary media discourse related to the value systems of migration and borders, by making use of interdisciplinary literature research and speculative experimentation.

Through magic realism and gamification, Xiaoji Song’s work, in the form of a theatrical board game, is offering to re-evaluate and re-enact the extractive systems which define migrants’ value, skills, and talents. Inspired by a series of talks with media organization and NGOs working on the topic of migration, she experimented with a setting of fictional systems to prompt media and collectively push players to reconsider the value of human beings and labour in relation to migration policy. This project intends to uncover the strategies used in systems of power developed through bureaucratic maze in migration systems and border controls and to support a future campaign.

Xiaoji asks who has the ultimate right to define who is the essential worker or not? Can that right be manipulated? What kind of skills and abilities are needed in a state? Who has the power to decide who get to survive the journey to live or stay in safety? What kind of labours are counted and included and what are not? 

These are not the questions to answer but to plant in the current narrative, to spark the conversation so that players reflect and rethink the existing global injustice, while reinforcing human dignity.