ABOUT THE GRANT
- $45,000 to Rubin Center for the Visual Arts/The University of Texas at El Paso to support Border Crossers (MAP 2019)
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Border Crossers is a large-scale performance and participatory procession involving several lightweight robotic sculptures and the trans-border communities in El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico. The Border Crossers performance series stages a peaceful, symbolic, “crossing” of the U.S.-Mexico border using the combined power of art, technology and community to create a radically positive and inclusive view of border culture.
The project will culminate in a series of coordinated public ‘activations’ at multiple sites in the El Paso, Texas/Juarez, Mexico area in collaboration with the Rubin Center for the Visual Arts/The University of Texas at El Paso. Each event involves the procession and activation of two or more pneumatic “soft-machines,” at both sides of the border. When the Border Crossers reach their maximum height of 30-35 feet, a coiled fabric tendril gradually unfurls into an arch-like shoot that “grows” over the border and touches down on the other side, forming two arches that straddle the border.
The slow, organic movements and physical softness of these inflatable Border Crossing machines would contrast with the rigid metal fence, forming a powerful metaphor for the living relationship between the diverse communities along the border.
ARTISTIC TEAM