Picturing Paradise: Border fence from U.S. side with mirrored surfaces and bullfight stadium in the background

For inSITE2000 Brazilian artist Valeska Soares was drawn to work directly with the border fence that divides the US and Mexico. Soares wanted specifically to find a way for people on either side of the border to be able to come together around a common theme or event and in some way create an exchange, or the illusion of an exchange, across the fence. Her initial proposal was for a garden project that would require a reconfiguration of the fence, yet it proved to be impossible to obtain permission to realize this idea. Soares changed her proposal but remained faithful to her concept of creating an opening in the fence. With Picturing Paradise the artist installed two highly polished large sheets of steel directly onto a section of chain-link fence at Playas de Tijuana, back to back, and as it were, creating the illusion of an opening in the fence, except what was seen was a reflection. Each mirrored surface was inscribed with an excerpt from Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, a text that speaks of two mirror cities and what describes their shared reality. --inSITE2000

• 2000

• Decker, Alan (photographer)

• Soares, Valeska (Brazilian installation artist, born 1957)

• InSITE2000

This image is a scan of a 35mm color slide from the InSite Archive (MSS 707, Box 310, Folder 06, Item 368)

Border Field State Park, San Diego

Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve (Calif.)

Tijuana, Playas de, Baja California Norte, Mexico

steel (alloy); mirrors; Texts (document genres)

• InSITE2000

• Mexican-American border region

• Fences
• Installations (visual works)
• Public art
• Sculpture (visual work)

• Border art
• Boundaries
• Political art
• Reflections (perceived properties)
• Stadiums

• image

Shared Shelf: 16715649

Online finding aid

• inSite Archive

Garden and Landscape

Sculpture and Installations

[Title, Date]. InSite Archive. MSS 707. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego.

Unknown (US)

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2020-10-26