San Diego - Tijuana XI, Frontera USA - Mexico
PABLO LÓPEZ LUZ’S SAN DIEGO – TIJUANA XI, FRONTERA USA – MEXICO (2015) explores the links between history and the contemporary world, especially the question of Mexican national identity. This photograph, shot from a helicopter during a flight that spanned 1,295 miles, disrupts the dominant narrative of the border as a zone of contention, and opens a new visual paradigm to reinterpret our understanding of the border. From above, the border wall is seen as only a small, man-made blemish, a scratch on the face of an otherwise whole, pristine landscape. From this perspective, it’s nearly impossible to know which side of the border is which, a disorienting effect that points to the contrived meanings and significance that humans have attached to this unnatural, constructed object.