Migration and Visual Art: March 2010

Stefanie McLaren

Art 309: Migration and Visual Art

Spring 2010

Greene

Breaking the Border

What is a border? A border is the line or frontier area separating political divisions or geographic regions (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/border). In other words, it is a boundary, or a way to create separation. When looking at the art world, there are many artists who utilize the concept of ‘border’ in their work. Artists Ursula Biemann and Guillermo Gomez-Pena demonstrate this concept throughout many of their pieces. Gomez-Pena has explored the Mexican and U.S border when looking at culture, identity, and politics. While some of Biemann’s work explores issues of identity, and gendered migrant labor near geographical borders. Although they both touch upon similar themes, they do so in varying approaches.

In the early 1990’s, Gomez-Pena made several solo performance videos using the border between Mexican and American cultures. In “Border Brujo” (Guillermo Gomez-Pena, 1989, USA), Guillermo sits at an altar and goes through 15 different personas, or stereotypes, representing American perceptions of Mexican identity, history and culture (Fig 1). This demonstration is quite intriguing, in that, although it is somewhat comical on the surface, it is extremely powerful in showing the cultural homogeneity that occurs in relationship to identity, as well as this sort of cultural misunderstanding across borders. “Son of Border Crisis” (Guillermo Gomez-Pena, 1990, USA) is another one of his works dealing with the clash of Mexican and American cultures. It is one of seven different video performances, once again by Guillermo himself, which have this sort of comical approach, yet speak to this greater idea of a mix in cultural identity and understanding.

Founded in 1993, Gomez-Pena’s organization “La Pocha Nostra” also breaks national borders by collaborating, what he calls, ‘rebel artists’ from different generations, disciplines, ethnicities and genders with a focus on citizen diplomacy. Most of this work is comprised of performance/installation, which is often interactive with the audience members. Gomez-Pena states,

“The basic premise of these collaborations is found on an ideal: if we learn to cross borders on stage, we may learn how to do so in larger social spheres. We hope others will be challenged to do he same” (http://pochanostra.com/).

He uses this idea of breaking the boundaries, as we know them, between how we view and distinguish identity and stereotypes. Furthermore, he crosses the line between performer and audience by encouraging the viewers to partake in the act after the first hour of the performance. Audience members are able to ‘explore’ the performers, speak freely into a microphone, have the option to choose a temporary identity, can stay as long as they choose, and have complete creative control. There are no constraints, or boundaries, and this idea of freedom and creative expression is truly inspiring. Gomez-Pena describes it as letting, “the demons loose; to open the infected border wound” (http://pochanostra.com/).

One of his more recent works “Performance Karaoke” (Guillermo Gomez-Pena, 2008, La Pocha Nostra, USA) breaks the borders, once again, but this time between photography and performance, involving audience members and people from the San Francisco area. La Pocha Nostra provided them with a large selection of costumes and accessories and shot a series of performance photos. The photograph below (Fig 2) from “Performance Karaoke” exemplifies the way the line between gender and age has been crossed, in that, the person appears to be an adult male who is dressed as a female, also holding doll. Even the facial expression demonstrates a naïve persona and an this sort of ‘imagined identity.”

When taking a look at Ursula Biemann’s work, she experiments with ideas of crossing borders, both physically with geographical borders and conceptually with exploration of identity and gender roles (http://geobodies.org/). Her video essay “Performing the Border” (Ursula Biemann, 1999, Mexico) also explores the Mexican-U.S. border. However, unlike Gomez-Pena, for this video she goes to the physical border in the towns of Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas. She touches on issues of exploitation and ‘unstable identities’ formed by the migration of teenage girls from central Mexico to start new lives, as well as the dangers and struggles that they face (Fig 3 & 4). Additionally she addresses sex violence and prostitution by interviewing Mexican girls who were formally in the business to obtain their perspectives. One interesting aspect of her interpretation of the ‘border’ in the video, is when she compares it with, “a wound that has to be heeled, that has to be closed that has to be protected from contamination and disease” (Biemann, Performing the Border). It is a good metaphor because it brings up the idea that the physical boundary is a division between countries as a way to provide a sense of security and health. Ironically, Gomez-Pena, as stated earlier, also speaks of the border in relationship to the idea of ‘wound’ by implying that we must open it, or break it.

Another work by Biemann, from the same series as “Performing the Border”, is “Europlex” (Ursula Biemann, 2003). In this video essay she films Moroccan women who cross the border for their jobs, as well as a look at smugglers and what they go through on a daily basis at the border (Fig 5). It deals with migration and by crossing the border they are blurring the boundaries of identity because they associate with both countries. The idea of migration and the desire of the young girls to start, or have, new lives across the border is really powerful. Her videos provides us with a look at the issues that result in the physical border and the developed identities of the adolescent girls and Moroccan women through their experiences.

As one can observe, through Guillermo Gomez-Pena’s use of theatrics and video performances he breaks the boundaries of identity, ethnicity and culture. Whereas, Ursula Biemann’s video essays demonstrate the power of the physical border, the collision of culture and how dual identities are formed through migration. Both artists seek to represent different areas of migration and the idea of ‘borders’ and they are both successful in their varying approaches.