Overview

The Border Project is a mixed media art installation highlighting the perspectives of high school students living along culturally and politically present-day borders.  Sponsored in part by the Tucson Pima Arts Council and the International Sonoran Desert Alliance, in conjunction with The Smithsonian travelling exhibit, Between Fences. 

By artist Morgana Wallace and photographer Jewel Clearwater

This project is the final outcome of high school students living on different sides of significant borders and sharing their views through artistic expression.  These borders are Arizona and Mexico, the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation and the nearest town of Ajo, and the overlapping of these communities.  

Morgana, a Curley School artist and teacher, spent four weeks in four art classrooms at the three following schools:     
 
            Ajo High School (Ajo, AZ)
            Tohono O'odham High School (Sells, AZ)
            Cobach High School (Sonoyta, Mexico)

During these sessions together with the students she generated discussion, drawings, writing, and sculpture on their perceptions of the word 'border' and its meaning. Jewel, also a Curley School artist, captured each student's essence through photography, allowing their image, as well as their artwork, to stand as a symbol of how they are affected by what's happening on our borders.