Craft Artists Rewrite Borderland Narratives in New Exhibit

“Craft’s reliance on the hand and its ties to tradition, community and history invite an alternative means of understanding the border,” explains Director and Chief Curator Ceci Moss. “Viewed together, the works in ‘Border Craft’ and the accompanying public programs speak to the complex set of conditions that define borderland regions and offer a new path forward.” 

The new exhibit represents just one of the hundreds of art, theatre, literature, dance and music events that are held each year at UC San Diego. Campus and community members are invited to discover all that is happening through ArtsConnect, a pathway to learn about upcoming events, educational programs in the arts and opportunities to get creative. Strategy for the new initiative is co-led by the School of Arts and Humanities and Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and Campus Life. 

‘A song to collapse the wall’

The “Border Craft” exhibition is a call for unity and mutual understanding at a time when it’s needed most. Moss was inspired by the way artist Tanya Aguiñiga describes her art and activism at the U.S.-Mexico border as a “song to collapse the wall.” Her monumental ceramic textile piece, “Somos una tela continua (We are all one continuous thread),” captures the vast movement that happens across manmade structures and serves as a centerpiece for the exhibition. 

“Situating this exhibition at UC San Diego, a university that supports significant scholarship on border studies across multiple departments and research units, inspires continued exchange on this urgent subject,” said Moss.

Aguiñiga recently participated in the Department of Visual Arts’ Longenecker Roth Artist in Residence program, established in 2016 to extend Martha Longenecker-Roth's legacy as an artist and educator. The program advances the research of craft as it relates to contemporary art making practices—the only residency of its kind at a major research university. “Border Craft” is the first exhibition at the newly renovated Mandeville Art Gallery to connect to this initiative.

The theme of movement is present in other works, as well as the role of storytelling in exploring the perception of the border’s permanence. For instance, artist Jackie Amézquita sourced soil on foot across hundreds of miles of borderlands to create clay blocks that contain etched stories of the lands’ inhabitants. Mely Barragán and Irma Sofia Poeter quilt together garments and blankets found along trails used by migrants, transforming them into a topological design. And Margarita Cabrera invites recent migrants to embroider their narratives onto recycled U.S. Border Patrol uniforms, which are then made into sculptures that resemble desert vegetation.

Two more artists in the exhibition integrate moving images with craft. On the exterior mesh screen of Mandeville Art Gallery, visitors can view a unique stop-motion animation by Marisa Raygoza, who embroidered individual frames depicting a tightrope walker that symbolizes the tension between the U.S. and Mexico. Additionally, Sofía Córdova presents an experimental documentary that shares the migration story of six women living in the Bay Area who arrived as refugees from numerous places of origin.

A double feature

The winter quarter presents numerous opportunities for campus and community members to visit graduate art studios, attend lectures and explore visual arts exhibits at UC San Diego. On Feb. 28, Ph.D. candidates in the Department of Visual Arts will introduce their newly launched dissertation projects at the Doctoral Research Colloquium. The public forum will also include a keynote lecture by an expert who has influenced the Ph.D. scholars; this year will feature Tamara Kneese, director of the Climate, Technology, and Justice Program at the Data & Society Research Institute.

A double feature will follow from 2-6 p.m. on March 1 with the free opening reception for “Border Craft” along with the Department of Visual Arts’ Graduate Open Studios event.

The opening celebration for “Border Craft” will include a performance at 3 p.m. by UC San Diego Visual Arts MFA alum Isidro Pérez García. Dressed as the character Tuleño—who is the spirit of the tule reeds— Pérez García will guide visitors as they collectively weave a chair using tule harvested from a local ecological reserve. Through the performance, craft becomes a shared activity employing traditional materials found on both sides of the border.

Nearby at the Visual Arts Facility, over 25 graduate students will open their workspaces to the public for a unique, insider look at what they are researching and creating. Visitors will have the chance to speak to students about their innovative projects in a range of media, from sculpture and performance to photography and film. 

The Department of Visual Arts MFA program in the School of Arts and Humanities provides intensive professional training for students who wish to pursue a career within the field of contemporary art—including all aspects of art making, criticism, theory and curating. In addition, the department is one of the few in the world to offer a Ph.D. in art history with a concentration in art practice, designed for working artists who engage with art historical and cultural research. 

Learn more about Mandeville Art Gallery, which has a five-decade history of presenting innovative art in the context of a major research university, as well as the Department of Visual Arts, ranked top 10 in the nation among graduate fine arts programs by U.S. News and World Report.