I've been experimenting with the first for the Muro Loco/Crazy Wall series. Here's one. If you didn't know it was the border fence, it would be an interesting game of "guess wtf this is."
Who wants to find me a place for a print exhibition of this series?
Here's another #MuroLoco / Crazy Wall shot. It's really hard to describe how wild this thing is. I've said before that I see it as a piece of public art in the service of authoritarianism. Being out here a lot, I can't help but see its performative character, its ideological purpose, its practical purpose (funneling big money into various private hands), *and* its raw aesthetic power.
I'm really hoping they don't close the access road immediately. The more I get to editing these shots, the more ideas I get that will require multiple repeat trips.
The big difficulty is that most of the strangeness of it comes from telephoto compression. But that means either shallow depth of field or using a tripod for long exposures at f11 or more, which isn't always possible for reasons.
Muro Loco/Wall Crazy
I've decided that "Wall Crazy", a direct translation, is better than "Crazy Wall", because it suggests the mental state of current border and immigration policy.
I just skimmed through the last trip's images and I've got some really good ones. They haven't closed the road yet and so far it seems the military are going to the populous areas. That is, they're going to where the media can easily get to and report, since this is all theater anyway.
Anyway, here's something slightly different. Shadows cast through the flood gates where the fence crosses California Gulch. I climbed up on the lock boxes on the gates themselves to get this shot.
Muro Loco/Wall Crazy
I just did a 2-minute edit on this, but I'll go back and do a bunch of masking to get it right. I took a lot of shots and didn't really like any of them at the time, but seeing them on my computer now, I like this one.
It really does take days and days and days out there in all sorts of weather, driving up and down the road, making note of where to be at what time of day, to get the best shots. There are some, like the tree with all the shadow stripes, that I've driven by 50 times, but never when the light was right, so never even noticed the potential there.
I just happened to have my camera pointed that general direction when this fella soared over. Digitally cropped way, way in. I've got another version where it's mostly sky, but I like this crop better.
Muro Loco/Wall Crazy
It is impossible to not notice the striking and improbable forms of this strange thing imposed on the landscape. You can say the same in metaphorical terms about U.S. border and immigration policy.
Muro Loco
I spent a while chatting with this couple. I didn't write their names down, so have since forgotten. They have a cute story. They met working on the Yuma, CA section of the border fence. Both are certified welders. She had already been working on the fence when they met. They're now married and live in a camper van of some sort and travel up and down the border working on the fence wherever they're needed.
They repeatedly emphasized how not-political they are, that this is just a job. They didn't seem to be particularly anti-immigrant, though I'm guessing they voted for Trump.
I know a lot of radical lefties find it odd or annoying that I take time to hang out with the work crews or even get chatty with the Border Patrol agents who I've come to recognize. There's nothing to be gained by being hostile to anyone here, no matter how much I disagree with the U.S. border policy. As long as people act respectfully, I'm curious about them and their roles here.
To continue this thought a bit...
U.S. border policy is so much bigger than any of the workers or particular agents. The fence itself is here for a while, so I feel like I might as well learn what I can about it and the people who work in its ambit.
Most of the Border Patrol agents around here that I have seen working have been, at worst, curt toward immigrants, but are usually respectful and professional. It could be because people like me are around with cameras, but so be it. If I see them misbehaving, I'll report that as well.
I'm drawing a distinction here between people working day to day on the fence and people like ICE agents doing raids.
One last interesting tidbit this welder couple shared with me after two near-supersonic jets roared over VERY low on a training flight: apparently the pilots practice aiming their weapons by locking on to the border fence crews and their equipment as they fly over 😬😂
Muro Loco/Wall Crazy
Okay, one more. This is the wife of the wife/husband certified welder team I chatted with while they were working on the flood gates in the border fence. This was where the border crosses California Gulch. They were adding brackets and pins so that the gates could be locked open during monsoon season.
A few more Muro Loco/Wall Crazy for the evening before I go to bed.
U.S. border fence from Mexico.
#MuroLoco #Border #Immigration #BorderTheater #BorderIndustrialComplex
Muro Loco/Wall Crazy
EoW, or "End of Wall". This is where asylum seekers are brought and walk around the fence after paying cartels who control this area. One Border Patrol agent recently told me that, according to a recent intel briefing he got, the fighting that had been going on between factions of the Sinaloa cartel had been settled, with Cazadores (Hunters) being in control. I haven't heard gunfire here in a while.
The new administration will certainly want to fill the gap east of here through the Pajarita Mountains, a designated Wilderness area. Then, instead of simply walking around the end of the fence migrants will go through cuts in the fence like they do west of here near Lukeville, AZ. Cutting the fence is a trivial matter, easily accomplished with a cheap battery powered grinder.
There is no such thing as a secure border. You can have a stable border. A humane border. A common sense border. But you cannot stop people who are desperate.
Muro Loco/Wall Crazy
Fence or wall? Depends how you look at it and what you're trying to accomplish with a name.
It is officially called a fence. Supporters, most of whom have never seen it, like to call it a wall.
Fence to me conveys permeability, impermanence, a barrier with limited utility such as keeping your dog in or your neighbor's prying eyes out. Wall conveys solidity, permanence, impenetrability, strength.
View it straight on and you can see it is full of holes. The 6" square tubes it's built from are set at 45°, thereby measuring 8" across on the diagonal. There is a 4" gap between them. 8" of steel/4" gap. One third of the "wall" is air. Cut one post and you get a 16" gap, easy to walk through.
But view it at a slight angle and it appears as a solid, corrugated wall of iron.
This is how they want us to look at it: from their angle, through their worldview; not straight on where we can see them for what they are.
Ok, bed time now. No more loco till tomorrow.
I've been working on a remodel project plus other photo and online projects during the day, but I'm forcing myself to edit at least a few Muro Loco series shots every night to see what I've got and what more I might want. I'll put together 50 of my favorites and then see how they go together with words and winnow them down. Then they'll go in a gallery on my site.
Muro Loco/Wall Crazy # 15
The shadows are often as interesting as the object that casts them.
U.S.-Mexico border fence shadows along the border road.
Muro Loco/Wall Crazy # 17
A great and maleficent dragon sprawls across the land, devouring the living as they try to cross. Those on the other side think the dragon protects them, not noticing as it slowly drains away their souls.
Muro Loco/Wall Crazy # 18
The sunlight comes in through the other side. We're the ones trapped by our shadows. Trying to keep the light of the world out, we've only locked ourselves in more tightly.
Muro Loco/Wall Crazy # 16
We live on the dark side of these bars. The light is out there. For those in the outer world to get in here is simple mechanics: a ladder to go over, a cordless grinder to cut through. But for us to get out of this cage is so much more difficult.
When I say "it is so much more difficult" for us to get out or that we're trapped here, I am not just talking about anti-immigrant MAGAts and their ilk.
What is your vision for the border and immigration? How do you frame the discussion? What do you say when someone asks for your ideas for border security?
Most dialog about the border is already shaped by an anti-immigrant, racist, isolationist framing even, unwittingly, among progressives. It is extremely difficult to break free from.
The notorious Prevention Through Deterrence program that weaponized the desert against migrants was started under Clinton. Long swaths of border fence were built under Obama.This has been going on long before MAGA, but it has reached its zenith with the current administration.
I've shared a few of my ideas here in past threads and, as part of this exhibition I'll refine them more. Getting people to completely rethink the border and change the narrative is a primary goal. That's where change starts.
Muro Loco/Wall Crazy # 21
The previous "wall" near Tres Bellotas Ranch east of Sasabe, AZ. Based on a number of discussions, I believe that this was constructed under the Obama administration. It was torn down and replaced with the current "mine-is-bigger" Trump administration fence. This is just a small section of a huge pile.
Muro Loco/Wall Crazy # 22
Centipede: hundred feet
Millipede: thousand feet
Gigapede: a million-footed arthropod of nightmare proportions that we've created to guard an imaginary line because we're afraid a few of the wrong human feet might cross it.
Thanks. I appreciate that.
@Mikal "by locking on to the border fence crews and their equipment as they fly over"
did they offer any explanation as to how they would know this? a large wall to orient against makes sense as a reason for the flybys but there's no way someone on the ground would know a jet has "locked on" to them...
I think they may have been pulling your leg. Great photos. Such a striking bit architecture. Wondering what future archeologists will make of it.
I got the impression that someone from one of the nearby bases told them. Spencer construction is a huge company that has built a bunch of the fence, sometimes in places like the base west of Yuma, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if they talked with people from the air force.
Given the similarity of the border fence to… well, a fortified border, and heavy equipment to tanks and APCs, and a team of construction workers with a platoon accompanying the tanks... I would be really surprised if they *didn't* use construction crews as practice.
I don't think those people were pulling my leg. Now, the Air Force could've been pulling theirs.
MACLA is an inclusive contemporary arts space in San Jose, CA grounded in the Chicano/Latino experience that incubates new visual, literary, and performance art in order to engage people in civic dialogue and community transformation.
@Mikal This photo: Stars and Stripes.
These photos are superb.
I alluded to that in some of the things I said. The fact that the wall imprisons us more than anyone else. Not literally, of course, but more in terms of imagination about how the world could be.
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