The US-Mexico Border: Place, Imagination, and Possibility
Publication Date
1-27-2018
Document Type
Exhibition
Exhibition/Performance Dates
January 27 - April 14, 2018
Publication Title
516 Arts & Albuquerque Museum
Conference Location
Albuquerque, NM
Editor
Dr. Lowery Stokes Sims and Ana Elena Mallet
Abstract
516 ARTS and the Albuquerque Museum present The US-Mexico Border: Place, Imagination, and Possibility co-curated by Dr. Lowery Stokes Sims and Ana Elena Mallet. The exhibition presents the work of contemporary artists who explore the border as a physical reality (place), as a subject (imagination), and as a site for production and solution (possibility). The inclusion of artists from various disciplines —including design, architecture, sculpture, painting, and photography—reflects the ways in which contemporary artists and designers themselves cross disciplinary borders. Many of the artists featured in the exhibition pursue a creative problem-solving process sometimes described as “design thinking,” which involves invention, social engagement, and the task of making.
This exhibition was originated at the Craft & Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles, where it was part of the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA initiative and supported by major grants from the Getty Foundation. The main exhibition in Albuquerque is hosted by 516 ARTS, and has been expanded into a collaboration with an additional exhibition site at the Albuquerque Museum and accompanying interdisciplinary public programs around Albuquerque. The border has come to occupy an intellectual and an emotionally charged space as well as a territorial one. It exists within the geography of memory as much as being a place of transit and transformation. Much of the creative production around the border unearths ways in which artists, architects, designers and makers who live in border states negotiate two divided but interconnected realities. Although this exhibition was conceived before the topic of “building a wall” along the US-Mexico border re-emerged in media headlines, its relevance is more potent and instructive than ever before.
Department
Design
Recommended Citation
Virginia San Fratello, Ronald Rael, and Rael San Fratello. "The US-Mexico Border: Place, Imagination, and Possibility" 516 Arts & Albuquerque Museum (2018).
Comments
Pieces included in exhibition: Borderwall as Architecture Renderings and Drawings, Recuerdos, “The Wall” board game.