” Since 2000, we have been traveling along the United States–Mexico border, collecting memories and stories of the places and people we have met, and documenting a series of scenarios, real and imagined, along the border wall.

 (…) This Grand Borderlands Tour traces the consequences of a security infrastructure that stands both conceptually and physically perpendicular to human mobility. The artifacts that Grand Tourists would return home with—art, books, pictures, sculpture—became symbols of wealth and freedom. Our border wall has become a barrier to movement that would create art, books, pictures, sculpture, wealth, freedom.

 On this journey, our collected experiences are represented in the form of snow globes: souvenirs, or recuerdos—a Spanish term that defines both the trinkets one might purchase at tourist shops and memories.” (…)

http://www.boomcalifornia.com/wp-content/uploads/

“Since 2000, Partners Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello have been traveling along the U.S. Mexico border, collecting memories and stories of the places and people they have met and encountered. …

 Recuerdos (Souvenirs) is a journey documenting a series of scenarios, real and imagined, along the U.S.-Mexico Border Wall. It is a story that must be told, for it is an account of the largest construction project in 21st century Usonia. Almost exactly the distance of the Grand Tour, the migratory route for upper-class European men that went from London to Rome, this journey stretches along the southern border for 1,931 miles. This Nuevo Grand Tour traces the consequences of a security infrastructure that stands both conceptually and physically perpendicular to human migration. Whereas the artifacts Grand Tourists would return with (art, books, pictures, sculpture) became symbols of wealth and freedom, the border wall is a preventative measure against Grand Tourists from the south.

 On this journey, the collected experiences are accounted for in the form of stories, drawings, images, postcards, key chains and snow globes: souvenirs, or recuerdos—a Spanish term that defines both the trinkets one might purchase at tourist shops, and memories—in this case declarative memory that is both semantic (independent of context) and episodic (particular to context). The recuerdos gathered are tragic, sublime and absurd, occasionally hyperbolized, but in all cases based on real experiences and events existing in the liminal space that defines the southern boundary of the United States.”

http://www.rael-sanfratello.com/?tag=border

All images :  Rael San Fratello :

1- Border  Wall Cemetery

2- Moleskine Memories

3- Border Wall Volleyball Net :

See also : “¡Viva Border Volleyball!…”,  http://enigmur.hypotheses.org/3659

 

 

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