Border Cantos | Sonic Border

Border Cantos | Sonic Border is a collaboration between American photographer Richard Misrach and Mexican American artist/composer Guillermo Galindo. Together, they explore the complexities of the Mexican-American border through photography, sculpture, and sound, inviting us to bridge boundaries and initiate conversations.

Both artists address complex topics that touch on politics, environmental concerns, and humanitarian issues. Richard Misrach is well known for his largescale expansive images focusing on the ways humans interact with and impact the natural environment. Guillermo Galindo’s composition Sonic Border is a 260-minute piece using eight musical instruments that he created from objects discarded near the Mexican-American border. Misrach found these objects on his visits there and sent them to Galindo. Together, the photographs, objects, and sonic composition introduce distinct yet interrelated ways of experiencing the human consequences of immigration policies.

Full Credit Line: Richard Misrach (b. 1949), Wall, Jacumba, California, 2009, El muro, Jacumba, California, Pigment print, 80 × 106 inches, Courtesy of the artist, IL.2018.107.1