The Cloud: white balloons being released while musicians perform

New York-based Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar's project for inSITE2000 was designed as an ephemeral monument in memory of the migrants who had died during the previous ten years while trying to cross the border between Mexico and the US. Entitled La nube/The Cloud the piece centered around the ceremonial release of over one thousand white balloons. With the balloons tethered together as a large cloud positioned immediately above the border fence at Valle del Matador/Goat Canyon, not far from Playas de Tijuana, the work took the form of a ceremony that included the performance of classical pieces by Albinoni, Bach and Veracini, the reading of a poem by Tijuana poet Victor Hugo Limon, and a minute of silence. The balloons were then released from the cluster and drifted off one by one across the sky as symbols of the souls of the dead migrants. --inSITE2000

• October 14, 2000

• Jaar, Alfredo (Chilean sculptor and installation artist, born 1956, active in the United States)

• InSITE2000

This image is a scan of a 35mm color slide from the InSite Archive (MSS 707, Box 309, Folder 06, Item 165)

Tijuana, Playas de, Baja California Norte, Mexico

Valle del Matador/Goat Canyon

balloons (toys)

• InSITE2000

• Mexican-American border region

• Installations (visual works)
• Sculpture (visual work)
• Walls

• Border art
• Boundaries
• Clouds
• Commemorations (events)
• Deaths
• Emigration and immigration
• Memory
• Music
• Musicians
• Rites and ceremonies
• Sky
• White (color)

• image

Shared Shelf: 16715446

Online finding aid

• inSite Archive

Performing Arts (including Performance Art)

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

Unknown (US)

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2020-10-26