Del Rio
For Mergoat Magazine, Knoxville
I really appreciate Mergoat Magazine giving a home to this series, alongside an essay by Michael Truscello, author of Infrastructural Brutalism (The MIT Press, 2020) on the art and necropolitics of infrastructure.
Del Rio is a polyptych created from objects and images taken between Del Rio, Texas, and Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila, after thousands of people, mainly from Haiti, attempted to enter the U.S. by crossing the Rio Grande River in the fall of 2021. The collages incorporate a collection of objects found at the International Bridge, archival material, and photographs.
The images of built and natural environments convey double meanings, such as "flood," “safety” colors, pipelines, and attention bubbles.
A man in a white shirt hides on an animal trail; bullets are found in the desert; a hyper-color place marker is nailed to the ground. As visual puns the images reinforce the absurdity of public interpretation of, and conclusion about, a place and moment they did not experience themselves.
The idea was an indictment and rehabilitation of media exploiting the ongoing migrant issue, and political reaction to this particular inflection point —now, in 2024, amplified in ever more grotesque ways.
In 2021 I watched as sensational images of people in distress experiencing the worst moment of their journey, and possibly their lives, were traded relentlessly on social media, by photojournalists, and by academics. A friend coined the portmanteau devastainment; a kind of cultural disaster capitalism.
Continuing the series into 2023 allowed for a response to the increased deployment of new surveillance and military technology in the region, the realities of a fluid water border, and the presence of violence. I tried to consider less obvious but still confusing and complicated dimensions. This series experimented with themes familiar to people whose aspirations are integrated with the U.S.-Mexico border, and more specifically, a handful of border counties in rural Texas.
Order the publication at the link to see the complete series. Please share if you’re moved to.
