The Modes of Assembly paintings aim at capturing alliances through depicting the material conditions of work environments. In what will be Nisenbaum’s most ambitious project to date, and a years-long engagement, this series focuses on the workers of industrial factories in northern Mexico. American companies have begun showing a preference for sources of factory labor from Northern Mexico rather than China. Recent media accounts of “nearshoring” suggest that the intensification of trade between Mexico and the U.S. put even greater pressure on one of the most frequently crossed international boundaries in the world, both in terms of people and material goods. In light of these developments, Nisenbaum has established a relationship with a large metalworking factory in Guadalajara, Jalisco that is willing to open its doors for Nisenbaum to meaningfully engage with their local community of factory workers. The portraits index this witnessing through the cumulative register of time that is needed to put paint to canvas. Inspired by Diego Rivera, who painted large murals of industrial factories, Nisenbaum’s work has often been compared to the Mexican Muralists in both its desire for social awareness, and the large mural-sized scale. This inherited belief in art’s social role, and a desire to integrate the arts into everyday public life, has led Nisenbaum to explore the meaning of community among workers in the service economy. Her current project interrogates whether the experience of those communities might be brought into productive social and aesthetic dialogue.