Borderland Collective opens discussion about U.S./Mexico border
Last night I attended a poetry reading the Kansas City Art Institute’s Crossroads Gallery, where they had an exhibition featuring works by the Borderland Collective. The works, created in collaboration between the International School of the Americas (ISA) and Borderland Collective during the 2015-2016 academic year, positions the México-US border region as a “cultural third space.”
What’s striking about the work of the collective is its interdisciplinary approach. I love work that blurs the lines between art, folk, and oral historyresearch
“As a means to deconstruct the current immigration landscape in both local and global terms, the International School of the Americas (ISA) and Borderland Collective collaborated on an intensive art/research-based project during the 2015-2016 academic year. In this inquiry-based course, students analyzed the U.S./Mexico border through multiple historical, theoretical, and pragmatic contexts.
Yet rather than simply consume, they unpacked these complex issues through photography, drawing, oral histories, collaborative journaling, writing, and mapping projects. In order to expand their primary source knowledge and challenge their preconceptions, students also dialogued with their peers and traveled to speak with a diverse group of speakers, ranging from immigration officers to artists to law professors. “
