RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA.- Yolande Andrade, Eniac Martinez, and Todd Bigelow, the artists in Common Borders: Casa Blanca, Riverside, and La Frontera, which will run through June 2, 2002, create portraits of the layered communities and cultures that make up the region known as la frontera or the border. These images refuse the representation of the U.S./Mexico border as a set of overwhelming statistics or an economic dilemma/opportunity instead showing how daily life is transformed by the individuals who live in this dynamic region.

Yolande Andrade captures a portrait of Riverside’s predominantly Hispanic Casa Blanca neighborhood focusing on residents continuing tradition of celebrating the Virgin of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico. Here her photos appear as candid shots of daily life: boys at the central library, grandmas reading the paper at the community center as a banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe watches over them, and a little girl praying at a backyard shrine to the patron saint of Mexico. The natural, unsensational, everyday quality of these images becomes their most powerful aspect. Andrade captures precisely how these Riverside residents have transformed their community both fitting in with it and making it their own.



Eniac Martinez documents a group of Mixteco Indians who migrated to the United States from their home state of Oaxaca in search of work. Mixtecos provide much of the labor force used to build the fastest growing housing market in the U.S. For many Mixtecos, Spanish is a foreign language and thus they find themselves in between U.S. and Mexican cultures -- English and Spanish -- trying to survive and maintain their indigenous cultural identity. In this series Martinez photographs in both Mexico and Riverside. Martinez’ portraits subtly suggest the cultural tension faced by these individuals.



Todd Bigelow began photographing the U.S./Mexico border out of personal interest. In the last ten years he has developed deep relationships with people on both sides of the border. As immigration policies have gone into effect Bigelow has documented the transformation of border communities from many perspectives. Common Borders features works from his series documenting migrant shelters along the Mexican side of the border, migrant camps in the hills of San Diego, and vigilante ranchers along the U.S. side of the border. In each case Bigelow seeks to capture the intense psychological as well as social and literal effects of border policies.



Andrade and Martinez are both art photographers based in Mexico. They created the bodies of work shown in Common Borders in 1992 as special commissions for UCR/California Museum of Photography, which now houses the photographs in its permanent collections. The work of Andrade and Martinez was exhibited at UCR/CMP as part of the show Between Worlds: Contemporary Mexican Photography. These commissions were originally sponsored by a grant from UC Mexus. Bigelow is an internationally published editorial photojournalist. His photo essays have appeared in Time, Newsweek, National Geographic Traveler, and The New York Times Magazine.



An opening reception for Common Borders will be held at 4 PM on May 2, 2002 followed by a video screening of contemporary works by artists inspired by the U.S./Mexico Border. Common Borders is being presented in conjunction with the exhibition Lines of Sight: Views of the U.S./Mexican Border at the Sweeney Art Gallery, UC Riverside. Lines of Sight runs from March 27 through May 12, 2002. An opening reception is scheduled for Thursday, April 11, 2002 followed by an artist's panel discussion on Friday, April 12, 2002. Lines of Sight and related programs have been generously sponsored by a grant from UC Mexus.