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Geographic significance
When artist, Morgana Wallace, first heard the call to artists for the Borders, Fences, and Gates exhibit she immediately thought of working with youth in her community, to evolve an art project expressing their personal experience with border issues. Having taught summer school art classes at the local public school, she became aware of its diverse population, as a result of living less than an hour from the Mexican border and even closer to the borders surrounding the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation. In an attempt to explore her area's unique situation, she designed a project for the Borders, Fences, and Gates exhibit that expresses visually how borders personally impact students.
Ajo, an ideal location
Ajo is a small, isolated, rural town over two hours from Tucson or Phoenix that is engulfed in border activity which employs over 200 Border Patrol and a National Guard Unit. Its population is comprised of historically disenfranchised groups of people. Its school demographics include 56% Mexican American and 20% Native American. An isolated community, Ajo is an ideal location for the Smithsonian exhibit to evolve discussion and support on border issues. This may be the first opportunity for many to have their opinions matter in a very deliberate and powerful way.
Project's impact
Starting in mid-October 2007, Morgana and Jewel visited the Ajo public school to work with high school students ages 16-18 in discussing borders as a word, as an object and as a personal symbol. The students wrote, discussed and mostly drew and sculpted on the issue while they observed, photographed, and recorded the process. Then they worked similarly with students at Tohono O'odham High School on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation. This provided them with works of art, photographs and audio recording representing the students' feelings on border issues. From the finished products of their work with the students, they created an installation that honors the views which they have conveyed through their time together. It depicts their important messages and serves as a monument of how border issues are drastically affecting youth, the most vulnerable portion of our community. The Borders, Fences, and Gates exhibit was only open to artists 18 years or older however with their work as part of their finished piece, students younger than 18 years were able to have their work displayed. The final piece fostered new ways of thinking in the students while it provided the community with the youth's perspectives on a pressing issue which is very close to home. Although Morgana and Jewel created the final piece, it is a compilation of the students' work, one hundred percent inspired by them and dependent upon the process and their perspectives revealed throughout.
Artist's intention
Art is a movement and a form in and of itself, however if and when it can be used as a tool to reach alternate goals, in this case, to create awareness in the community and learning opportunities for youth, then it becomes that much more powerful in its capability. Thinking critically about how current issues affect you personally and expressing it in a visual way is an excellent growing experience for all people, whether you are the creator, the observer or simply part of the issue. Morgana intends for this project to give a voice to our youth, a population whose future will be impacted by how we approach and resolve border issues today.
Sponsors
The Border Project began with small grant funding from the Tucson Pima Arts Council. We were able to bring all student participants together at the Tohono O’odham Cultural Center and Museum for a Student Celebration thanks to a grant award from the Arizona Commission on the Arts. Most recently, the project is being transformed into a traveling exhibit with funding from PRO Neighborhoods. This project would not be possible without the support of our funders.
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