La Frontera: Encounters Along the Border

“Borders separate but also unite.” —Octavio Paz, Mexican poet and diplomat

The exhibition seeks to explore the space of the US-Mexico border and what it represents. The border presents daily challenges that carry within them both hope and devastation. It is a complex physical, economic, cultural, social, and emotional landscape of human interaction.Jewelry artists from Mexico, the United States, Latin America, and Europe expose the underlying currents of the border environment within geographic, political, economic, social, cultural, and ideological contexts. The artists transform metal, fiber, wood, and other materials into representations of their experiences, their influences, their dreams, and their nightmares.

This traveling exhibition premiered at the Museo Franz Mayer in Mexico City in 2013 and then traveled to Velvet da Vinci, San Francisco, California; the Art Gallery at Indiana University Kokomo, Kokomo, Indiana; and the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Houston, Texas.