Nearly 2,000 miles long, extending from the Gulf of Mexico in the east to the Pacific Coast in the west, the United States–Mexico border contains some of the busiest and most culturally diverse land ports in the world. Each year, hundreds of millions of people cross this international line to go to school and work, exchange goods and services, and visit friends and family. Many others cross with the intention of making more permanent homes on the other side, as have millions of displaced peoples who have sought safety at the border in recent decades. To regulate human movement through this high-traffic, international boundary, the U.S. Government manages a matrix of checkpoints, steel fences, and surveillance systems. These barriers make the borderline tangible and enforceable, but as the artists in this show point out, they also inscribe social divisions and economic asymmetries on border communities–often with dangerous consequences for migrants in crisis. In a landscape of migrations and meeting places, the shadow of the wall looms large.

Walls are built to protect inside from outside, but they also construct boundaries that simplify more complex realities. As does the basic question they ask: What side are you on? While contemporary conversations about the U.S.–Mexico border often fixate on enforcement infrastructure in a geography of geopolitical conflict, they tend to neglect the social, ecological, and ancestral relationships that transcend any national boundary. Through site-specific, object-oriented, and community-engaged works, the artists in this group exhibition challenge stark divisions between people and nations, embracing the creativity capacity of multiple belongings. Together, they render visible what the wall often obscures: the lived realities of human suffering on the border and countless instances of hope–where people, on both sides, find strength in mutual aid, compassion, and cross-border bonds.

Featuring work by Tanya Aguiñiga, Margarita Cabrera, Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman, Ana Teresa Fernández, Christina Fernandez, Pablo López Luz, Hector Dionicio Mendoza, Elizabeth Pineda, Jami Porter Lara, Rael San Fratello, Jorge Rojas, Stephanie Syjuco, Kelly Tapia-Chuning, Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, and the Undocumented Migration Project