Transborder Ecological Futures
Futuros Ecológicos Transfronterizos
Design and text for an informal horizon scanning system of the Rio Grande-Río Bravo.
I built a transborder ecological futures domain map that supports visioning the northern Chihuahuan Desert in the U.S.-Mexico border for the years 2037-2097.
Foresight frameworks and even speculative fictions exist to surface information and wisdom, notice change, and locate what’s possible. If the frames are reworked and revised, it is to get closer, not further away, from some form of claimable accuracy, validity of theory, or novel insight.
These things are marketable when they communicate or compel sensemaking, a velvety word that means competitive edge. This project attempted sensemaking somewhat.
Signs of a malfunctioning border can be rationalized. Collapse, choked waterways, porousness, germination, violence, productivity, decay… these things can go unnoticed as signals of change if we don’t know what it means for it to be working as intended. Subsequently, when they are recognized, they can more easily be exploited to coordinate social or economic agendas.
If the border is a question, the best response to it is conditioned by how we frame the question and who is framing the question.
Without a conscious theory of a functional border, I don’t see how we can recognize or evaluate emerging progress or collapse. I’m not saying a border is a social or technological engineering problem needing to be optimized. I’m saying a border is a process, not a structure.
