At the juncture of San Diego, California, and Tijuana, Mexico, the border wall's rusting steel bars plunge into the sand, extending three hundred feet into the Pacific ocean and casting a long and conflicting shadow.
The Wall is a documentary project about “Friendship Park,” a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border where families meet to share intimate moments through the metal fence that separates them.
Physical borders create symbolic boundaries that reinforce the rhetoric of “us versus them,” in which immigrants are seen as a threat to traditional narratives ingrained in various communities across America. The existence of these fences illustrates anti-immigrant sentiment, legitimizing exclusionary practices and justifying harsh government action. Once erected, they become enduring, permanent features of the geopolitical landscape—and a powerful, aggressive reminder to immigrants that they don’t belong.
By calling attention to the human interactions at Friendship Park, where families visit with and speak with one another through a metal fence, I attempt to neutralize what this wall was built to create: Separation.
My goal is to transform the discourse on border security into a conversation about immigrant visibility, addressing audiences on both sides of the wall by challenging popular assumptions or by reminding them that they are seen, heard and that they matter.