What does the physical and psychological space of the US-Mexico border look and feel like? An internationally exhibited visual artist, Susan Harbage Page has been posing this question since 2007, traveling each year to work in Brownsville, Texas; Matamoros, Mexico; and the surrounding Rio Grande Valley. Page walks the border and photographs the objects that are left behind as individuals swim across the Rio Grande River, change from wet clothes into dry clothes, and continue their journeys into an uncertain future in the United States. The objects are photographed in place and then shipped back to Page’s studio, where they are photographed again and placed in her Anti-Archive. These present-day archeological remains range from toothbrushes and lipsticks to passports and bullets, each coming with its own incomplete narrative and history of flight, surveillance, and fear.
Page is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies and affiliate faculty member in Global Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Cosponsored by: Ohio State’s Department of Political Science and the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
