| dc.description.abstract | Since the 1960s, artists have created artwork in response to the U.S.-Mexico border. Throughout the late 20th century, both the United States and Mexico, artists used a variety of mediums to communicate social, political, and geographical concerns, such as printmaking, muralism, photography, installation art. Many of these concerns have endured into the present day, though there is a shift in mediums and methods through which these issues enter the contemporary art world.
In my thesis, I explore the material components of sculptures by Margarita Cabrera, Camilo Ontiveros and Guillermo Galindo– artists of Mexican descent now living and working in the United States. Their artwork details the lived experiences of migrants and their loved ones as they are affected by policy, violence, and the government agencies that oversee their legal status in the United States. Their artworks incorporate various found, loaned, and reused materials including empty bullet casings found along the border, border patrol uniforms, and the personal property of a young DACA recipient who was deported in 2017. By tracing the threads of materiality, embodiment, and political resonance, my thesis analyzes how their artworks negotiate trauma, violence, and survival. Moreover, their works conceptualize migration itself as an embodied experience through three dimensional conditions. | en_US |
