logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Complimentary Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

Amid Crisis, Artists from San Diego and Tijuana Point to “Borderless Sky” Above

Eileen Cunniffe
November 26, 2018
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
BrokenSphere [CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL], from Wikimedia Commons

November 16, 2018; Hyperallergic

The Trump administration finished off the Thanksgiving weekend by closing the busy San Ysidro border and firing tear gas into assemblages that included women and young children. This border stands between the neighboring but strikingly different cities of San Diego and Tijuana. As it happens, an exhibition that opened in September—a month before thousands of asylum-seeking migrants from Central America set out for the US—showcases “a vibrant cultural community” of artists from these paired cities.

Titled “Being Here with You: Estando aquí contigo,” the exhibition is at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) until early February, and the timing couldn’t be better. On Thanksgiving Day, the mayor of Tijuana declared a humanitarian crisis as his already under-resourced city struggles to accommodate and feed approximately 5,000 migrants who have made it that far with hopes of a chance to enter the United States.

Writing for Hyperallegic, Rachel Heidenry describes the two cities as follows:

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

Only 15 miles separate San Diego and Tijuana. Together, the border cities comprise the largest binational metropolitan region in the world, cut in half by the world’s most trafficked international border. Each city has approximately 1.3 million residents, and yet their urban realities exist in stark contrast: a sprawling wealthy metropolis on one side and dense, informal settlements on the other.

“Being Here with You: Estando aquí contigo” includes artists who call these two cities home. Heidenry notes that collectively the artists take on both historical and contemporary themes—from cultural appropriation of Native American art to Mexican folklore; from colonialism to the partial border wall that separates the United States and Mexico; and from landscapes—and skyscapes—to identity politics and homelessness. She describes a series of photographs by Chantal Peñalosa this way:

Peñalosa has taken alluring photographs of clouds, one set over Tecate, Mexico, and the other just over the border in the United States. The resulting pairings are poetic reminders of the borderless sky, in contrast to the artificial boundaries separating nations below.

Because the works are not arranged thematically—for example, by subject matter or geography—the overall impression is that these works—like the artists who made them—are in conversation with each other, across cultures, across languages, and across a now violently weaponized border that an artist’s eye may choose to view as one unbroken landscape.—Eileen Cunniffe

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
About the author
Eileen Cunniffe

Eileen Cunniffe has worked in the nonprofit arts sector for more than a decade, managing board development, capacity-building consulting projects and skill-based volunteer programs. She also has deep experience in corporate public affairs, organizational communications and community relations work. In addition to writing for NPQ, Eileen also writes and publishes creative nonfiction.

More about: local art and artistsManagement and LeadershipNonprofit News

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

Spring-2023-sidebar-subscribe
You might also like
Hierarchy and Justice
Cyndi Suarez
Salvadoran Foreign Agent Law Threatens Human Rights Movements
Devon Kearney
Charitable Tax Reform: Why Half Measures Won’t Curb Plutocracy
Alan Davis
Healing-Centered Leadership: A Path to Transformation
Shawn A. Ginwright
Into the Fire: Lessons from Movement Conflicts
Ingrid Benedict, Weyam Ghadbian and Jovida Ross
How Nonprofits Can Truly Advance Change
Hildy Gottlieb

NPQ Webinars

April 27th, 2 pm ET

Liberatory Decision-Making

How to Facilitate and Engage in Healthy Decision-making Processes

Register Now
You might also like
Hierarchy and Justice
Cyndi Suarez
Salvadoran Foreign Agent Law Threatens Human Rights...
Devon Kearney
Charitable Tax Reform: Why Half Measures Won’t Curb...
Alan Davis

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

NPQ-Spring-2023-cover

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.