TWO SIDES OF THE BORDER

The exhibition “Two Sides of the Border” opened at the AEDES Architecture Forum in Berlin on March 15, 2019. The exhibition presents research findings and designs from an academic initiative. Mexican architect Tatiana Bilbao launched the initiative in 2018. All of the exhibited works focus on the question of how the region on the border between Mexico and the USA can be rethought.

Especially in the digital and globalized age, the wall as an instrument of exclusion seems to be becoming more and more topical. So topical, in fact, that it did not even stop at the last Architecture Biennale in Venice. Similar to the German pavilion “Unbuilding Walls” or the US pavilion “Dimensions of Citizenship”, this exhibition also asks how modern borders behave. The border between Mexico and the USA is 3144 kilometers long. That is roughly equivalent to the distance from Paris to the Black Sea in Bulgaria. Due to the intensive economic and family ties between the two countries, the border is one of the most frequently crossed in the world. Goods worth 41.5 billion US dollars are exchanged in just one month. The US architect Nile Greenberg (curator and designer of the exhibition) describes how the border region is characterized by a strong historical, economic and ecological relationship: “They share more than what divides them”. This is where the exhibition “Two Sides of the Border” comes in. It views the border region as a unit that needs to be redefined.

“What if we no longer saw the USA and Mexico as two separate states?”

The exhibition “Two Sides of the Border” approaches the topic in the form of an atlas. The atlas presents three perspectives: a projective, an objective and a subjective one.

The projective atlas uses drawings, images and models to present interdisciplinary architectural and urban planning designs from thirteen architecture faculties in Mexico and the USA.
from Mexico and the USA. All of the works view the region less as two separate states and more as a shared space. The students deal with cross-border issues such as migration, housing and natural resources in the border region in very different ways.

The Objective Atlas features new geographical maps by Swiss architect Thomas Paturet. For Paturet, the medium of the map has the power to dissolve the borders in North America by focusing on other spatial-geographical relationships and similarities. If you look at vegetation or infrastructure maps, for example, you can only guess at the actual border. Historical maps from the last four hundred years are also shown. These illustrate the numerous border shifts in the region, which at the same time make it difficult to form a collective idea of the border.

The third and subjective part of the atlas consists of a photo essay by Dutch photographer Iwan Baan. Baan gives an impressive account of changes in the landscape, large-scale infrastructure and border architecture. The photographs show, among other things, steel fences that divide an idyllic beach in two or the controversial Tornillo temporary detention center in Texas, where thousands of migrant children are housed.

“Two Sides of the Border” manages to ensure that the three chosen perspectives don’t just work side by side. They naturally complement and reinforce each other. The contributions are critical, analytical, utopian, oppositional and aesthetically pleasing. The exhibition confronts a depressing topic full of potential and clever ideas, and that is encouraging.

The exhibition “Two Sides of the Border” can be seen at the Architekturforum AEDES in Berlin until April 25, 2019.