Abstract

Drawing from border theory and postcolonial studies, this thesis investigates the way narratives of borders and nation have been explored and contested in three art projects commissioned for inSite, a binational art festival focused on the Tijuana-San Diego border zone. The first case study focuses on Valeska Soares' Picturing Paradise (2001) to investigate the border as an ideological and physical construct that divides Mexico and the United States. The second examines Judi Werthein's Brinco (2005) to explore illegal border crossings and the action of "jumping" into the United States. The third case study looks at Gustavo Artigas' The Rules of the Game (2000) to propose a metaphor of the border dynamics of friction and coexistence. This thesis exposes one of the most important characteristics of the border between Mexico and the United States, that being how the paradigm of the nation-state is structured to reinforce frontiers and dominant narratives of difference in order to legitimate and perpetuate social and economical divisions. This thesis challenges the nation-state paradigm and explores the connections between borders and illegal immigration in contemporary art.