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Art At The Crossroads: Artists Addressing The U.S./Mexico Border
With the threat of closing the U.S./Mexico border looming, people whose lives do not intersect with the border on a regular basis are thinking more about the border than usual. But before this recent wave of attention, artists have been drawn to the border and have been drawing attention to the myriad issues it raises through performances, street art, public art, photography, and augmented reality (AR).
Artists Tae Hwang and MR Barnadas have worked with participants in both Tijuana and San Diego to form an arts collective known as Collective Magpie. In a Close(d) Relationship (2017–8) features collaborative work that Hwang and Barnanadas organized and facilitated through seminars titled “Transnational Seminars I & II.” These were “experimental classes” conducted with local college students from both sides of the border. In Transnational Seminar II, for example, students from University of California, San Diego, and Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Tijuana, came together to produce public street theater in both cities. They formed a parade, wearing handmade costumes dressed as President Trump’s border wall prototypes — serving layered and multiple functions. First these performances brought humor and dialogue to a fraught subject. Second, in wearing the border prototypes on their physical bodies, students’ performative act physically provided an important reminder of the corporeal reality that underlies the topic of the border — human lives.
In Borrando La Frontera, or Erasing the Border, Ana Teresa Fernández began painting the border to match the sky behind, consequently appearing to “erase” the border. Of her work and motivation, Jill Holslin writes, “Ana Teresa Fernández’s own journey — crossing the Tijuana-San Diego border to study and build her career — mirrors the route north taken by millions of women who have come from southern and central Mexico to work in the maquiladoras and make a better life for themselves and their families.” In this way, Fernández speaks to the communities and families to whom the border stands as a liminal and Janus-faced being. Her work…
