Breaking Borders / Rompiendo Fronteras

December 1, 2006 – January 21, 2007

ABOUT THE EXHIBIT
Breaking Borders / Rompiendo Fronteras is an exhibit of photography and digital art from the Salvadoran community overseas. Curated by Rene Rodriguez, this exhibit of work by both professional and amateur photographers was presented in El Salvador in July 2006, and was the result of a call-for-entries to Salvadorans living outside of El Salvador organized by Latin American Cultural Space (LACS), the Consulate of El Salvador in Washington DC, and the Salvadoran Vice-Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

Breaking Borders / Rompiendo Fronteras strives through images and testimonies to connect people and communities across borders.  The participants in this project are all joined in their desire to share what it means to be a Salvadoran or a citizen of the world.  Through the immediacy and communicative power of the medium of photography, they explore the concept of borders, be they imaginary, cultural, generational, national or international. 

On view are works by artist-photographers such as
Nicolas Shi, Muriel Hasbun, Gabriela Hasbun and PaulaHeredia; photo-journalists such as Miguel Alvarez and Jorge Martinez; and others who, although not professionally trained photographers, explore the immediacy and communicative power of the medium.  The photographers represented in the exhibit reside in various corners of the globe from North and South America to Europe and Australia.

As a part of Breaking Borders, Muriel Hasbun has created a site-specific community-based and continually transforming artwork entitled Documented: The Community Blackboard.  In a space flooded with oral testimonies recorded by Hasbun in El Salvador this past summer, visitors are encouraged to write their narratives or post their family documents onto the blackboard wall, “contributing to a space which promotes tolerance, creativity and respect, where voices and photos become passports in a collective journey across borders, cultures, and generations.” 

Breaking Borders / Rompiendo Fronteras is made possible by the generous support of  LACS, the Consulate of El Salvador in Washington DC,  the Viceministerio de Relaciones Exteriores para Atencion de Salvadoreños en el Exterior, and the Mission of El Salvador to the Organization of American States, and is funded in part by the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.