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Image / Picturing Paradise: Border fence with mirrored surface

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Title
Picturing Paradise: Border fence with mirrored surface
Creator
Soares, Valeska (Brazilian installation artist, born 1957)
Miyata, Shigeto (Japanese photographer)
Contributor
InSITE2000
Date Created and/or Issued
2000
Contributing Institution
UC San Diego, Special Collections and Archives
Collection
inSite Archive: Selections
Rights Information
Unknown
Constraint(s) on Use: This work may be protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.). Use of this work beyond that allowed by "fair use" requires the written permission of the copyright holders(s). Responsibility for obtaining permissions and any use and distribution of this work rests exclusively with the user and not the UC San Diego Libraries. Inquiries can be made to the UC San Diego Libraries department having custody of the work.
Use: This work is available from the UC San Diego Library. This digital copy of the work is intended to support research, teaching, and private study.
Description
Garden and Landscape
Sculpture and Installations
For inSITE2000 Brazilian artist Valeska Soares was drawn to work directly with the border fence that divides the US and Mexico. Soares wanted specifically to find a way for people on either side of the border to be able to come together around a common theme or event and in some way create an exchange, or the illusion of an exchange, across the fence. Her initial proposal was for a garden project that would require a reconfiguration of the fence, yet it proved to be impossible to obtain permission to realize this idea. Soares changed her proposal but remained faithful to her concept of creating an opening in the fence. With Picturing Paradise the artist installed two highly polished large sheets of steel directly onto a section of chain-link fence at Playas de Tijuana, back to back, and as it were, creating the illusion of an opening in the fence, except what was seen was a reflection. Each mirrored surface was inscribed with an excerpt from Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, a text that speaks of two mirror cities and what describes their shared reality. --inSITE2000
Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego, La Jolla, 92093-0175 (https://lib.ucsd.edu/sca)
This image is a scan of a 35mm color slide from the InSite Archive (MSS 707, Box 310, Folder 06, Item 370)
[Title, Date]. InSite Archive. MSS 707. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego.
Tijuana, Playas de, Baja California Norte, Mexico
Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve (Calif.)
Border Field State Park, San Diego
Type
image
Format
Steel (alloy); mirrors; Texts (document genres)
Form/Genre
fences
installations (visual works)
public art
sculpture (visual work)
Identifier
ark:/20775/bb13681953
Language
No linguistic content
Subject
Political art
Reflections (perceived properties)
Boundaries
Border art
Fences
Installations (visual works)
Public art
Sculpture (visual work)
Mexican-American border region
InSITE2000
Place
Mexican-American border region

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