EASE AND DIS-EASE ALONG A ‘POROUS’ BORDER

Borderdom is a word coined by the artist to represent the constant awareness of living next to the world’s super power.  This double-edged reality is experienced asymmetrically, yet profoundly by the northern and southern neighbours of the U.S.; however, both neighbours perceive America’s projected anxieties without, perhaps, being seen to have differing points of view.  Both Canada and Mexico are inundated by U.S. media, and very conscious of the spin-doctors at Fox.  Margaret Atwood likened the Canadian-U.S. border to a 5000-mile one-way mirror, while Mexicans contemplate the intentions behind the US proposal to build a continuous physical wall extending from the Pacific to the Atlantic.  Borderdom reflects on this continental condition of our shared existence, to which we are inured.

Through aerial views of the North American body as seen along its international borders (with the countries coloured in the geography classroom maps of the 60s:  Canada-pink, US-green, Mexico-orange), with references to the undocumented and unregulated movement of people, pathogens, elements of “criminality,” and subversive ideas, the so-called longest undefended border is examined with its USMCA (formerly NAFTA) complement, as conflicted sites of cultural and economic inhabitation, influence, colonization, contamination and exchange: the Borderdom effect.