Final Paper- Breaking the Border: Gender & Identity

Stefanie McLaren

Art 309: Migration and Visual Art

Spring 2010

Greene

breaking the border: gender and identity

What is a border? A border is the line or frontier area separating political divisions or geographic regions.[1] ­In other words, it is a boundary, or a way to create separation. When looking at border art, artists Ursula Biemann and Guillermo Gomez-Peña both explore the border and the concept of bordered identity throughout their work. In particular, Biemann’s video essay Performing the Border and Gomez Peña’s Border Brujo both examine identities, and gender, at the U.S/Mexico border.

Ursula Biemann, born in Switzerland in 1955, became interested in the border after her first trip to Ciudad Juarez in the 1980’s where she took many photographs of the women and their working conditions in the free trade zone at the border. Of course many aspects of the border changed after the signing of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement.[2] However, her interest in the new meanings and identities, especially the female identity, prospered and eventually led her to produce, Performing the Border in 1999.

In Performing the Border, Biemann brings light to the women who live at the bor­­­der and their formed identities when it comes to labor, prostitution, and a new sense of empowerment and outward sexual desire in entertainment. The female identity definitely changed with the creation of NAFTA, and the establishment of the first maquiladoras. Maquiladoras are factories that manufacture goods for client’s across borders, sometimes importing materials duty-free and then exporting and distributing the products. In an interview, with Imre Szeman,

Biemann states,

“Nimble fingers make for better and faster precision work in electronic assemblage operations; adolescent girls have no experience in the public sphere and are thus less likely to organize into unions; young girls can be paid much lower wages because they count as secondary income to a household; and they are generally the most vulnerable segment of the population because they have the least autonomy within their families but high responsibilities towards their members.”[3]

The border and the maquiladoras have blurred the boundaries of the Mexican female identity. With the women in the work force and the reversal of income, the social customs changed, thus giving a new sense of independence and empowerment to the women of the border.

However, along with the labor identity, many of the young women even go as far as to prostitute themselves on weekends, because the factories, paying minimum wage, do not provide them enough money to fully support themselves and their families. Juana Azua, a former sex worker, was forced to begin selling her body on the border at the age of 31 in order to help pay for her brother’s accident costs, as well as help with his seven children. She stated that the money was always present with the passage of American men through the border, however the war put an end to the crossing and the money eventually dried up in Juarez.[4] This demonstrates how much influence the border has on the lives of the women and their roles in society, and also how the women influence the border itself.­­­­­­

Performance artist Guillermo Gomez-Peña was born and raised in Mexico. Coincidently, both he and Biemann were born in 1955 , and were able to observe and experience the border pre NAFTA, and also later, post NAFTA. Gomez-Peña moved to the United States in 1978 and went to the California Institute of Arts for post-studio art.[5] In 1988 he developed Border Brujo, a solo perfermance piece in which he sits at an altar and transforms into 15 different personas, or stereotyes, representing American perceptions of Mexican identity, history and culture.[6] This demonstration is quite intriguing, in that, although it is somewhat comical on the surface, it is extremely powerful in showing the cultural heterogenity that occurs, as well as the a culural misunderstanding of identity across borders.

Unlike Biemann, Gomez-Peña places himself in his film, and uses various costume pieces and accessories to help represent these different identitites. One thing I found to be quite interesting is the use of various streotyical and gender related articles. For example, in the section Identity as an Optical Illustion he is seen in a hot pink boa, which is more generally associated with more of a female, or flamboyant, character. One interesting aspect about this part is when he declares, “Can anyone document me please?... Can anyone be so kind as to authenticate my existence?” This was somewhat thought provoking after watching Performing the Border. This makes one reflect upon border culture and the idea of women being dehumanized , in a way, and turned into what Biemann describes as, “a disposable, exchangeable and marketable component.”[7] This idea put forth by both artists that sometimes border residents don’t really have an acknoledged identity in society is quite fascinating when thinking about their lifestyles and the role that they play.

Throughout Border Brujo. Gomez-Peña blurs the boundaries of identity with race, as well as gender by becoming a ‘transvestite’[8] with some of his guises such as the earlier mentioned pink boa, the different earrings he wears, the long haired wig he places on his head, and the personality and feelings he expresses during different parts of his performance. In Dressing Across the Border, Robert Neustadt describes Gomez-Peña’s act of cross-dressing as a way to ‘underscore and efface the boundary.’ So basically, a way to draw attention to the concept of ‘border’ and eliminate the lines between identities. He states that Gomez-Peña, “does not move towards a permanent resolution of binary oppositions but instead delineates a fluid, non-fixed, condition that is subject to continuous change.” Border Brujo demonstrates that the identities formed by the border are not just one race or one gender. Neustadt also describes Gomez Peña’s process throughout Border Brujo as a type of ‘cross dressing’ in itself, a cross-dressing of borders.[9] He relates it to how transvestites move between genders, just as Gomez-Peña moves between personalities.

In comparing the two artists, Ursula Biemann uses footage and interviews of real life people from the border to depict their lifestyles and how the border creates their gendered identities. I feel as though she generally remains neutral with her view of the border and represents it how it is, and what causes it to be, and transform. Whereas Guillermo Gomez-Peña is the sole person in his film, performing a multitude of identities, which blur the boundaries, for the viewer to reflect on and analyze their own thoughts and feelings. He uses a very outward, confrontational technique and sometimes a feeling of negativity in his perspective. He is somewhat distrought by the negative stereotypes that he, himself, is portaying in relationship to Mexican identity.

Both Gomez Peña in Border Brujo and Ursula Biemann with Performing the Border depict gendered identity in different ways, and show how identities are either blurred or transformed by the both the conceptual and the physical border. Gomez-Peña demonstrates the identies and social roles that the border defines; he crosses the line between North and South, American and Latino, and male and female. Biemann identifies the multiple facets of the Mexican female and how there has been a shift in identities and social roles with the border. Both artist bring attention to the concept of the ‘border’ and gender and represent the strive of residents and their formed identities.­

---

[1] The Free Dictionary;”Border,” http://www.thefreedictionary.com/border. accessed 04/04/2010.

[2] Imre Szeman, “Remote Sensing: An Interview with Ursula Biemann” (2002), 2.

[3] Szeman, 2.

[4] Ursula Biemann, Performing the Border, Switzerland/Mexico, 1999.

[5] Guillermo Gómez-Peña Biography - (b. 1955), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México/National Autonomous University of Mexico, Border Brujo. http://www.jrank.org/cultures/pages/3916/Guillermo-G%C3%B3mez-Pe%C3%B1a.html. Accessed 04/10/10

[6] Gómez-Peña, Guillermo, Border Brujo, Dir. Isaac Artenstein. San Diego: Cinewest Productions: Sushi Inc., 1990.

[7] Performing the Border

[8] Robert Neustadt, “Guillermo Gómez-Peña: Dragging Representation” http://sincronia.cucsh.udg.mx/neustadt.html

[9] Neustadt