Border
Art Workshop/
Taller de Arte Fronterizo
Formation
June to October, 1984.
VAW/TAF is organized by David Avalos under the sponsorship of the
Centro Cultural de la Raza, San Diego, California.
The
Exile - 1984
1984, Southwestern College Gallery, Chula Vista, CA
This performance event marked the first collaboration effort between
Michael Schnorr, Guillermo Gomez-Peña and Sara-Jo Berman,
which was presented in conjunction with the exhibition "Artists
Look at Politics in the 1980s."
Border
Realities - February 1985
Galeria de la Raza, San Francisco, CA
A multi-media art event including an outdoor mural, video, sculpture,
painting photography and performance art within the gallery installation.
Ocnoceni. Performed by Guillermo Gomez-Peña and Sara-Jo
Berman. Ocnoceni explored the mythical landscape of the border
and how Latin Americans become myths when they cross the border.
Premiered as part of Border Realities I.
Border
Tableau - November 1985
Border Field Park, US-Mexico Border
A tableau vivant created for photographer Jay Dusard for inclusion
in a book by him and journalist, Alan Weisman. La Frontera: The
United States Border with Mexico, (1986. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
Inc.) Photo: plate 54, text: pp. 179-181.
A
Tri-Cultural Street Event - January 1986
Sushi, Inc., San Diego, CA
A performance within a light and sculpture installation created
on the street in front of the gallery.
Border
Realities I - 1986
Video Art, USA, color, 12 minutes, ¾ inch; English and Spanish
A potpourri of border imagery including elements of Ocnoceni (which
premiered in November 1985). Produced by BAW/TAF member Michael
Schnorr and directed by Isaac Artenstein and Michael Schnorr. Screened
at the Centro Cultural de la Raza, the San Diego Art Institute's
"Video 86" exhibition, the Robert Else Gallery at CSU
Sacramento and the San Antonio Cine Festival, 1986.
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Border Realities II - February 1986
Centro Cultural de la Raza, San Diego, CA
A series of installations occupying 2,000 square feet ad utilizing
light, graphics, sculpture, painting, slide projection and video.
Gallery visitors were encouraged to write on the walls, lift boulders,
climb on sculpture and interact with the installations in a variety
of other ways. Performance presentations occurred at the opening
and closing of the exhibition. Cabaret Babylon-Aztlan - performed
by Guillermo Gomez-Peña and Sara Jo Berman in the format
of a Tijuana cabaret. The piece reveals the ironic interactions
between Mexicans, Chicanos and Anglos in the region.
End
of the Line - October 12, 1986
Centro Cultural de la Raza, San Diego, CA
A site-specific performance/installation/event that took place at
the end of the border fence where Tijuana and San Diego meet at
the Pacific Ocean. An attempt by artists and audience on both sides
of the border to discover America on their own terms. The piece
occurred simultaneously in the United States and Mexico and was
intended to create a sense of "no border." As a challenge
to the media concept of the border as a "war zone," the
piece established the possibility of a space for creativity and
peaceful interaction.
Café
Urgente - October 16, 1986
Centro Cultural de la Raza, San Diego, CA
A café environment was created within a sculpture and light
installation forming a context for the presentation of performance
and ideas by US and Mexican humanities scholars and writers (Tomas
Ybarra-Frausto, Ph.D., James D. Cockroft, Ph.D., Alan Weisman, Felipe
Ehrenberg, David Maciel, Ph.D., and BAW/TAF members). Over bottles
of beer and cups of coffee the audience and presenters discussed
border consciousness, the redefinition of the border and new models
for its future unfolding.
Border
Realities III - February 1987
Centro Cultural de la Raza, San Diego,CA
BAW/TAF's third annual art exhibition including installations, sculpture,
performance, painting, drawing, photo/texts and documentation of
"end of the Line" Documented/Undocumented - Co-written
and performed by Guillermo Gomez-Peña and Emily Hicks and
performed as part of Border Realities III. This interdisciplinary
performance explores the fragile and slippery notions of being "documented"
or "undocumented" through a series of vignettes that utilize
movement, text, audio and photography.
911
- A House Gone Wrong - April 1987
La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, Parameters 8, San Diego, California
Co-sponsored by the Centro Cultural de la Raza Primarily an installation
utilizing wall painting, sculpture, light and sound. Two different
presentations of performance art occurred the three-month length
of the exhibition.
Parameters 8 Coffee/Discussions
- April-June 1987
Java Coffe House and Gallery, San Diego, Ca
Four informal panel discussion hosted by BAW/TAF and held in conjunction
with "911." Panelists included Tijuana publisher Rosina
Conde; The Tribune editorial page editor, Joe Holley; Chicano activist,
Herman Baca; Pulitzer Prize winner, Johathan Freedman; Mexican researcher;
Jose Luis Perez Canchola; Director for the Institute for Regional
Studies of the Californias, Paul Ganster; and art critics, Susan
Freudenheim, Leah Ollman and Robert Pincus.
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Is
the Border in Your Mind, on the Ground or in the Media? - April
14, 1987
Society for Photographic Education, 24th National Conference, San
Diego, CA
A collaborative, interdisciplinary 30-minute event. A critique of
mass media images of the border utilizing audio-taped sequences,
choreography, slides, live performance, original "rap"
song and sculpture sets.
Border
Pilgrimage - November 1, 1987
Tijuana/San Diego
Around the Day of the Dead, a group of experimental Mexican, Chicano
and Anglo artists gathered at the municipal cemetery in Tijuana
around the tomb of Juan Soldado, patron saint of Chicanos and the
undocumented. Their objective was to cross legally or illegally,
under real or fictitious identities, and document the journey with
video, sound, photographs, drawings, and poetry, and, at the same
time, to collect objects and images for the later construction of
an altar for the dead commemorating the event. I Couldn' Reveal
my Identity (Video art, USA, 1988, in color, 10 min., ¾ inch,
English) The Wrestler Bride, a follower of Santa Frida, made a pilgrimage
from the tomb of Juan Soldado in Tijuana to the Centro Cultural
de la Raza in San Diego. The Wrestler Bride was asked to remove
her mask at the border, but she explained that "she couldn't
reveal her identity." By Emily Hicks and Berta Jottar.
Border
Door - May 28, 1988
Otay Mesa/Tijuana
A quarter mile east of the Tijuana International airport, at the
border fence, Richard Lou constructed a free-standing door which
could only be opened from the Mexican side. He hung 134 detachable
keys on the Mexican side of the door as an invitation to anyone
wanting to cross. He also distributed hundreds of keys among would-be
undocumented workers in various colonias of Tijuana and personally
extended them an invitation "to cross the border with dignity."
Border
Realities IV, Casa de Cambio - Spring 1988
Centro Cultural de la Raza, San Diego, CA
This exhibition included the collaboration of 20 artists from the
San Diego-Tijuana region in a larger, interdisciplinary art exhibit.
The exhibition was conceptually integrated around the potential
for a labyrinth or maze to disorient an audience. Coupled with a
variety of installation approaches, the aim of the exhibition was
the transformation of the viewer on an internal and intellectual
level. The video Erasing the Line: Backyard to Backyard was featured
in one of the installations, and it portrayed residents of San Ysidro
and Tijuana who live and work within a few hundred yards of the
international border and whose concepts and ideas help to refute
the popular media myth of the border as a "war Zone."
Border Brujo The first production of Guillermo Gomez-Peña's
current piece was premiered in the context of Casa de Cambio. Border
Brujo undergoes a series of nine transformations of character/speech/culture/sex,
etc.
Backyard
to Backyard - 1988
Video art, USA, 1988, color, 26 min, ¾ inch, English and
Spanish
A challenge to the mass media's version of the San Diego/Tijuana
border region as a "war zone." Through the words and images
of residents who live on the actual borderline itself, we begin
to see the roots of the media myth. By Berta Jottar, Alicia Flores
and Michael Schnorr.
#95
- 1988
San Diego, CA
In collaboration wit the Sierra Club, members of workshop including
Berta Jottar, Robert Sanchez and Richard Lou designed this performance,
which deals with Coastal Border Ecology and oil drilling.
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Vidas
Perdidas/Lost Lives - January 1989
Artists Space, New York, New York
BAW/TAF in this multi=media exhibition, will be the medium, the
organ of delineation of the undocumented worker, so they may define
their own lives as well as their own deaths. The installation invited
people to walk from the dangerous border freeway crossings to the
poisonous north county San Diego flower fields and forced plantation
reality of the region's undocumented workers.
Super
Barrio - March 7, 1989
Centro Cultural de la Raza, San Diego, CA
A BAW/TAF performance collaborating with Super Barrio (the Mexican
folk-social activist hero). A mock wrestling match against the Borderlords
and an informational presentation on human rights violations in
San Diego's north county.
Border
Realities V - June 1989
Centro Cultural de la Raza, San Diego, CA
The sequential collaboration and the exchange of social-cultural
dialogues at a bi-national level has placed BAW/TAF in a position
to widen the perspective and the ability to examine how issues and
concerns that affect regional borders interconnect within the global
multinational border context. This interdisciplinary exhibition
reflects concepts of a global border reach-out. As the interconnectedness
of border regions becomes more apparent, we can expose the spiritual
groveling caused by divisibility and negation.
Highways Opening Benefit
- Cinco de Mayo - May 5, 1989
Santa Monica, CA
BAW/TAF and friends from Los Angeles, San Francisco and Tijuana
help to inaugurate the Highways Performance Space with a series
of performances and street events, culminating in a community procession
through the neighborhood ending in the Pantera Rosa bar. The aim
was to ceremonially reclaim the area. One of the oldest barrios
in the region, as part of Aztlan.
Capp
Street Project - July - August 1989
San Francisco, CA
BAW/TAF was instrumental in the creation of an Alternative News
Media Network by Artists, a functional, temporal network of gathering,
archiving, analysis and dissemination. We have a sense of urgency
about breaking out of the art circuit and enlarging the definition
of the artist to embrace communicator/disseminator of ideas/images.
We want: a) to make the information accessible to a broader, more
multi-cultural audience; and b) to document the audience's response
to our analysis and presentations.
If
You Lived Here, The City in Art, Theory and Social Activism - 1989
Dia Art Foundation, New York, New York
Group exhibition presenting the current crisis in American urban
housing policies and portraying how artists within the context of
neighborhood organizations have found against government neglect,
shortsighted housing policies and real estate speculation.
No Place to Call Home (Video art, USA, color, 20 mins, ¾
inch, English and Spanish). An altered documentary of the conditions
and final eviction of undocumented workers in north San Diego county
for lack of adequate housing and unfettered real estate speculation.
What's
Wrong With This Picture? - September 1989
San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, San Francisco, CA
A group exhibition, panel and roundtable discussion on issues of
censorship and self-censorship from the viewpoints of artists, political
figures, arts administrators and historians, business, law and religious
experts.
Soccer
Field/Cañon Zapata Performance Interventions - October 1989
- February 1990
San Diego/Tijuana
A series of performance interventions on the international boundary
line between California, US and Baja California, Mexico, taking
place on game board designs and asking for participation by local
people and those waiting to cross into the US. The interventions
were meant to question ideas of place, boundary, colonization and
the "media image" of the area as a "war zone."
Border Watch I/Soccer Field/Cañon
Zapata - January 1990
Galeria de la Raza, San Francisco, CA
The first presentation of the Soccer Field/Cañon Zapata performance
interventions in exhibition installation format with Sony Face-to-Face
telephone machines connecting San Diego with the Galleria. Street
projections of border performances and crossings extended the exhibition
outside the gallery space.
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Counter
Protest to "Light Up the Border" - March 1990
Nestor, CA
A site-specific performance intervention with more than 100 participants
carrying mirrors to reflect the lights and ignorance of the Light
Up the Border demonstrators. BAW/TAF organized citizen and student
groups in order to expand the experience of performance intervention
within a populist political action.
El
Bordo - Spring 1990
Tijuana, Mexico
A series of site-specific performance intervention actions coordinated
with and initiated by Tijuana artists in order to raise the visibility
of US Border Patrol activities and those of the Light Up the Border
groups.
Venice
Biennale - April 1990
Aperto '90, Colon Colonizado, Venice, Italy
International invitational multimedia installation focusing on the
series of performance interventions directly on the US/Mexico border
dealing with issues of colonialism (Colon Colonizado); international
boundaries (Berlin Posada); the invasion of Panama (Oh George, Oh
Panama); and the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (Roll my Dice with
a Lucky Hand, I want to Own a Lot of Land).
Living
on the Border: Art and Activism, San Diego & Tijuana - June
1990
Lancaster Festival, Ohio
The Venice Biennale Aperto '90 installation installed in Ohio.
Border Sutures - July -
August 1990
Southwestern United States
Performance journey from Matamoros to San Diego/Tijuana, during
which participants made a variety of staples that attempted to heal
the wound of the border and involved people along the line. The
one-month interactive traveling at caravan traveled both sides of
the border in zig-zag fashion to symbolically mend the wound. Border
crossing points of entry and non-traditional art sites made up a
majority of the stopping points and established new networks of
communications between BAW/TAF members and native Americans, Mexicans
and North Americans.
Border
Watch II - September 1990
CIRCA, University of Texas, Arlington, Texas
A second version of the Venice Biennale Aperto '90 installation
with a live video transmission from the Soccer Field/Cañon
Zapata in San Diego/Tijuana of a performance intervention entitled
Border Tug of War following the performance intervention format
developed in late 1989 at the Soccer Field/Cañon Zapata.
Orfanatorio
Laslo Cardenas - December 1990
Tijuana, Mexico
Collaborative mural project done with students from Southwestern
College and Tijuana for the infants' hall in the orphanage. This
was the first attempt of an ongoing project dealing with the lives
of children made homeless, either existing on the streets or in
institutions, a situation analogous to the lives of many undocumented
workers.
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Whitewash(ed)
- April 1991
Centro Cultural de la Raza, San Diego, CA
BAW/TAF annual exhibition (Border Realities VI) including over 20
artists from Tijuana, San Diego, and London, England. This exhibit
explored a wide range of interpretations of racism on physical and
psychic borders, issues of identity and place the rise of vigilantism
against undocumented workers in our community and our unconscious
denials of these realities.
Border
Watch III (Human Prey) - May 1991
LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions), San Diego, CA
A portable exhibition in conjunction with Whitewash(ed) that traveled
to four San Diego area high schools and challenged students to confront
their involvement in the institutionalization of racism, the need
for creative self-expression, how patterns of behavior become distorted
and the creation of attitudes which acknowledge our diversity.
South=North=South
- July - August 1991
Hallwalls, Buffalo, NY
From July 17 through August 19, BAW/TAF was in residence in recognition
of the fact that borderland cultural multiplicity is coming increasingly
to describe not only border towns like San Diego/Tijuana or Buffalo,
but the entire United States. BAW/TAF's activities in Western New
York included two weeks of interaction with migrant farmworkers
and their families followed by two weeks of community/art-based
activities in Buffalo, which included music, performance, visual
art exhibition and community discussion.
1991:
Conquests Do Not Belong Only to the Past - November - December 1991
INTAR, New York, NY
BAW/TAF offers a portion of a large traveling slide exhibition,
focusing on some aspects of the current expressions of colonialism.
The slides are projected onto an outside wall at night in downtown
New York City. They work visually to be quickly read, including
historical reference to conquest, as well as imagery which infuses
humor into an often-grave situation, with imagery which points to
sexism, racism and the objectification of human beings.
Destination
L.A. - December 1991
LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions), Los Angeles, CA
An interdisciplinary installation and performance that is concerned
with the fact of Los Angeles as a destination for migrating people
and undocumented workers.
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Vecinos/Neighbors
- 1991
The publishing of BAW/TAF's second comprehensive catalogue covering
the years 1988 to 1991, with the participation of many writers and
artists from Mexico and the United States.
Portable
Stories/Histories Portatiles - May - June 1992
Centro Cultural de La Raza, San Diego, CA
BAW/TAF's annual exhibition (Border Realities VII) with over 60
collaborators from San Diego and Tijuana. The project included an
outreach project with two classes (50 students) from the bilingual
program in San Diego High School. The exhibition formatted in a
wide variety of mediums, the personal narratives of people who arrived
to the San Diego/Tijuana Border region from somewhere else.
Boundary
Rider, Stories from the Edge - 1992 - 1993
Ninth Biennale of Sidney, Australia
A reformatting of the Portable Stories/Historias Portatiles exhibition
for a foreign audience, with the incorporation of the Latino community
in Sidney, in the construction of the exhibition.
Discoveries
- February - May 1993
Sidney, Australia
A community workshop with Laotian, Cambodian and Vietnamese refugee
teenagers living in the Sidney suburb of Cabramata. The result of
the workshop was an exhibition that explored the source of the label
"indochinese" and the resistance to integration of Australian
society. This exhibition and the teenagers were featured in the
opening segment of 60 Minutes Australia. The project received numerous
news coverage.
Australia
Tour - April 1993
Three members of BAW/TAF toured Brisbane, Townsville,Carins, Darwin,
Alice Springs, Tasmania and Melbourne in a lecture/performance road
show about the Mexico/US Border reality.
Boycott/Boicot
- September - December 1993
San Ysidro Border Crossing on November 21 - 22 (the busiest border
crossing in the world). The intent of the project was to reveal
the integral economic ties between San Diego and Tijuana, as well
as to expose the rising anti-Mexican sentiment in California as
a result of the passage of Proposition 187.
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Triumph
of the Will (Part II) - 1993
A 20-min color video documentary of the construction of the new
metal wall between the US and Mexico as it enters the Pacific Ocean.
The video, directed by Michael Schnorr and edited by Adolfo Davila
has been exhibited many times nationally and internationally.
ESL:
English as a Second Language/La Lengua Trabada - September 1994
Boehm Gallery, Palomar College, San Marcos, CA
Installation Gallery inSite '95 binational installation and site-specific
art exhibition. The exhibition motive was to collaborate with three
classes of English as a Second Language students and to reveal the
dilemmas inherent in language learning. Two videos were produced
to accompany the exhibition.
Broken
Promises: Cultural Value is Non-Negotiable - December 1994 - January
1995
Centro Cultural de la Raza, San Diego, CA
BAW/TAF's annual exhibition (Border Realities VIII) presented to
the San Diego/Tijuana audience the results of our Australian experience.
This exhibition included over 100 works of Australian and Aboriginal
artists covering themes such as indigenous, immigrant, conqueror,
refugee and prisoner in a multimedia format.
La
Llaga/The Sore - February - April 1995
Africus, The first South African Binnale, Johannesburg.
A multimedia installation using the themes of California's Proposition
187 and the process of redlining loans, to explain the current atmosphere
of US national politics. The exhibition was preceded six months
by two BAW/TAF members attending a series of planning conferences
in Johannesburg.
Des
Regards Sun La Frontiere Mexique/Etats-Unis-October 1995 - February
1996
Maison de Mexique and UNESCO, Paris, France
Exhibition of drawings, paintings and a video by children living
in the San Ysidro/Tijuana border area, their viewpoints. Cosponsored
with the Children's Museum/Museo de Los Niños, San Diego
and the Department of Culture, Tijuana, Mexico. Awarded first prize
in the children-under-19 art project category for the 1996-1997
World Ideas for Peace, Habitat II sponsored by the United Nations
for the 50th Anniversary of UNICEF.
Where's
Mom? Kids and Violence: The absence of positive female images in
children's fairy tales - November 1995 - February 1996
Centro Cultural de la Raza, San Diego, CA
BAW/TAF's annual exhibition (Border Realities IX). An interactive
multimedia exhibition with professional artists and K-12 students
including Internet web site access.
FOR:
Forms of Resistance - January - March 1997
Centro Cultural de la Raza, San Diego, CA
BAW/TAF's annual exhibition (Border Realities X). A multimedia exhibition
presenting work from Afghanistan, Croatia/Bosnia, Southern Lebanon/Palestine,
Grenada, Mexico and the United States. The show featured ways that
traditional forms of culture are transformed into peaceful forms
of resistance.
Forms
of Resistance: Corridors of Power - February 1997 - September 1997
Installation Gallery inSite '97.
A community engagement project at the Poblado Maclovio Rojas. (Current
project as of April 11, 1997.)
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