BORDER STUDIES

Along the Texas-Mexico border, the people have blended the structures, institutions, and life expressions of two societies to create something novel and entirely theirs—the ambiente fronterizo, or borderlands milieu. Today, the area stands as a prime example of binational interdependence, providing striking evidence of the trend toward closer ties among the world's nations and societies. -- Oscar Martínez.

Welcome to "Border Studies." This exhibition features 36 photographic studies of people and places along the Texas-Mexico border, from El Paso/Juárez to Brownsville/Matamoros. These images are prefaced by a series of maps, one of which locates the exhibit in space at the juncture of Texas and Mexico, and six which locate the Border in time, from 1700 to 1848, as it shifted west and south. There is also a scene from the Santa Elena Canyon in Big Bend National Park (a painting in the panel exhibition and a photograph in this virtual exhibit) to represent a region that was all but overlooked in the exhibition itself.

This show had its origins in an open competition sponsored by the Texas Humanities Resource Center, with funding from the Texas Commission on the Arts. Photographers submitted up to 12 images each, and the entries were selected by judges primarily on the basis of their artistry and composition. Representation of the entire border was a secondary criterion for the judges, and to tell the truth, such a survey could not have been organized from the work submitted. Just to name two of the large omissions: there is no picture taken in the vast distance between Big Bend and Laredo, and there is no bridge.

The exhibit is called "Border Studies" to signify the work of photographers—pictorial studies—and the general location in which they worked. It does not imply a panoramic view of the Border landscape, nor a depiction of the most representative kinds of people who live along the Border. It does imply, however, that these are pictures which tell memorable stories about individuals and environments in a clearly defined time and space. Look closely at each photograph, and see what it has to tell you. Photographers' statements are presented in quotations.