Photobook: 1050 Kilometers
About
1050 Kilometers is a leporello photobook documenting portions of the barrier between the U.S. - Mexican Border. The images were taken along various border towns and cities in Mexico, including Tijuana, Mexicali, Nogales, and Matamoros. Behind the images, numbers and figures give the reader a sense of the human scale of migrants who must cross difficult terrain, evade capture, and risk their lives to reach their unlikely Promised Land.
As the pages are folded out, the book becomes an uninterrupted wall; a symbolic representation of the sprawling network of barriers, border patrols, sensors and drones employed by the U.S. to keep undocumented migrants out. As a tool and symbol of the American effort to keep out undocumented migrants, the wall has become an irresistible politicized canvas for Latin Americans. Political and utopic murals sit side by side the sanctioned advertising and warnings. Most strikingly, crosses placed on the wall have become a common site, set there to remind us of the 10,000 migrants who have died attempting to cross.
1050 Kilometers conveys the sense of impenetrability and monolithic scale of the barrier faced by Latin American migrants every day. Gazing upon these images, we cannot help but imagine what is hidden from our view beyond the wall. As the barrier continues to expand, the stakes are raised for migrants; the humanitarian crisis deepens as we watch these walls reach higher and farther.
