LA PUERTA DE LAS CALIFORNIAS
3 channel video installation
TIJUANA-SAN DIEGO, 2017
For the project LA PUERTA DE LAS CALIFORNIAS a large door of 6,8 meters height was constructed and transported on a truck across the Border from Tijuana to San Diego. The door is a mistranslated object: constructed on the basis of the Mexican metric system, the door results as a 6.8 meters element, instead of the standard 6 feet 8 inches as a regular door would be in the American imperial system. The gigantic door produced by this misinterpretation was brought across the Mexico/US border and went through official customs policies and processes. The process of the crossing was filmed and the documentation is formed in a three channel video installation.
Tijuana has been given different names in connection to its geographical position such as ‘La esquina de México, La puerta de México’, and ‘La esquina de América Latina’. One of the most popular names, the ‘Door of Mexico’ refers to the entire city as the door, the entrance from Mexico to the United States and vice-versa, crossing the international border. Peter Andreas, as quoted by Mike Davis, observes that, ‘The paradox of US-Mexico integration is that a barricaded border and a borderless economy are being constructed simultaneously’. One example of this borderless economy can be observed in the way that both the Mexican metric system and the imperial US system are used and combined in the work of architectural and construction companies. This coexistence of both ‘architectural languages’ often leads to misunderstandings and the production of designed objects in the wrong scale.
The documentation has been realized in collaboration with:
Miguel Buenrostro, John Chapman, Marina Viruete, The Universidad de las Californias Internacional (UDCI)- department of Cinematography and the students: Bianca Arvizu, Xcaret Trejo, Pablo Franco, Enrique Castañeda Romero, Pamela Palacios and Karen Catalan
Special thanks to:
Fausto Rincon (academic coordinator of the department of cinematography of UDCI), Marco Velazcko, Margarita Garcia Asperas, Araceli Lemos, Xavier Cruz, Andrea Franco, Liz Flyntz, Mael Vizcarra, Stuart Cardwell, Haydeé Jiménez, Moises Arce, Stella Chronopoulou, Iraklis Donas
NGBK BERLIN, group exhibition ‘Tunnel below / Skyjacking above: deconstructing the border’ (August-October 2017)