The Blue-Gray

Project Statement

The Blue-Gray was made in and en route to seven different locations in and near the Sonoran Desert which is divided by the US/Mexico Border. The locations include El Tiradito Wishing Shrine, Tucson, AZ, Mission San Xavier Del Bac, Tucson, AZ, Ajo, AZ, Baboquivari, Tohono O’odham Nation, AZ, Pinal Airpark, Marana, AZ, Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park, Chandler, AZ, and Tijuana, Mexico. This body of work is an interrogation and contemplation of space through photographic means.

Group Exhibition, By Now We Are There, The Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson, Tucson, AZ (2017)

Group Exhibition, By Now We Are There, The Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson, Tucson, AZ (2017)

Participating Artists: Isan Brant, Stephanie Burchett, Conor Elliott Fitzgerald, Wren Gardiner, Hellen Gaudence, Jonathan Marquis, Nassem Navab, Karoliina Paatos, Dustin Shores, Galen Trezise, David Taylor

Geographer Yi Fu Tuan explains that space becomes place when it is invested with meaning. By that logic, we make place–it is a product of our understanding and perception. But if not intrinsic, then place can be, literally, everywhere–an idiosyncratic assignment of meaning. Driving from the United States into Mexico at the Andrade Port of Entry on the morning of November 9, 2016, eleven people were bound for the Pacific coast of Mexico in a University of Arizona van. If you asked them what makes a place as they crossed the border into Los Algodones the answer might have been shared experience.