is on CRISIS THIS

C. Ruiz, E. Amigon

“PA’ RIBA PA’ BAJO PAL CENTRO Y PA DENTRO”

We both grew up as Mexican-Americans and have had to experience this invisible cultural pull from both sides which was only made worse in 2016 when Trump became president and the term border became synonymous with wall.

Although we do not speak much about our personal connections to the border, it drove the project all throughout the semester. We understand the U.S.-Mexico border as a line on geographical maps, but in reality, it is a long strip of activity where interactions and flows are constant and vital. It is not binary. The constant transactional flow and activity of people, species, and products allow both sides of the border to function as a single heterotopia.

However, it filters out specific people and thus leads the border to function as an anti-commons where people cannot gather.

Human mobility is regulated through selective and exclusionary border practices. As much as the thin, imaginary line would like to emphasize that they are two different lands, it is still the same soil, air, and animals that cross back and forth with no regard to the border. We propose to add to the heterotopic nature of the border to include people and culture. We understand that the border is charged by many issues, including political, historical and social, however, we are not focusing on everything but zeroing in on the cultural aspect of the border.

A thickening of the imaginary line between two countries will allow us to question how far the boundary reaches into the atmosphere and soil. We thicken both in section and plan, treating each layer differently the higher or lower we go. It becomes a commons of intense mixing of cultures, nature, and time.