http://www.azcentral.com/community/scot ... t0910.html

Border snapshots illustrate issue

Dolores Tropiano
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 10, 2006 12:00 AM


An unprecedented photo exhibition in Scottsdale may spark new ideas and understanding on both sides of the controversial border issue.

"The Border Film Project: El Proyecto Fronterizo Fotografico" opens Saturday at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art.

It features photos taken by undocumented immigrants as they trek the desert and the self-appointed Minuteman sentries who track them. advertisement




The unpolished snapshots offer rare, subjective glimpses into the border world.

"Our hope was to do something very inclusive and bring people together," said filmmaker Rudy Adler, 24, one of three collaborators on the project. "The partisan environment is very corrosive. People become angry and fight, and yet the truth usually falls somewhere between both arguments."

Adler, an Arizona State University graduate currently working in Brooklyn, came up with the idea for the project with two friends, business analyst Victoria Criado,24, and Brett Huneycutt, 25, a Rhodes Scholar currently working as a business consultant in New York.

The idea for the project was simple.

Pass out 600 disposable cameras - 500 to immigrants and 100 to Minutemen along the Mexico-Texas and Mexico-Arizona borders.

Give participants a stamped envelope to return cameras.

Provide incentives to both groups. The immigrants received gift cards from Wal-Mart and the Minutemen received cards for gas.

Nearly 40 cameras from each group were returned with a total of nearly 2,000 photos. The exhibition features 260 of them.

"The pictures were so amazing," Huneycutt said. "We were really pleased."

"People have very strong ideas about immigration, but they don't have the human facts," he continued. "The camera allowed the two groups on the ground, at the heart of the matter, to express themselves and give the issue new perspective."

The photos are non-professional but often quite powerful:


• One is of a young man whose feet were bleeding from walking through the desert.


• Another is of a toilet in the middle of the desert with a sign that reads "Rest Area."

Huneycutt said even his perspective was altered by the experience of putting together the exhibition.


Human faces on border
"The Minutemen are cast in the media as vigilante whackos. But when we met them, we were really surprised by how sensitive and compassionate they were," said Huneycutt, who grew up in Phoenix.

That weekend the Minutemen had discovered the body of a woman in the desert.

"I remember vividly one of the volunteers was lamenting the fact that her mother and father would never know what happened to her," he said.

The museum exhibition was organized by Marilu Knode, senior curator, and Cassandra Coblentz, assistant curator for the museum.

"We wanted to present information about this issue that was different from the way it gets represented in the media," Coblentz said.

"Some (of the photos) are not pretty. Some are difficult. Some are humorous. And some are poignant.

"What struck us when we saw these images was that it was something that was really unique. It was people trying to document their own experiences, rather than having reporters trying to find an angle."


A gathering of friends
The exhibition was a collaborative project.

Adler worked with Huneycutt, who attended Hopi Elementary School with him, and Criado, who graduated with Huneycutt from Boston College.

Luis Ibarra and Teresa Rosano of Ibarra Rosano Design Architects in Tucson designed the installation.

The photos are kept in their original 4-by-6-inch size.

"We wanted to retain the idea of them being snapshots, they were never intended to be fine-art objects," Coblentz said.

The installation was carefully conceived using the metaphor of shadows and light.

"Metaphorically, it relates to the experience of crossing the desert at night and even the experience of what the immigrants deal with in this country, living perpetually in the shadows," she said.




Debate part of program
The exhibition will be paired with numerous educational components, including a debate between prominent national figures.

All of which makes for a serious but satisfying show for Coblentz.

"I think it's important in terms of its topical nature and I'm really happy to be doing it," Coblentz said.

Maria Porta-Ward, who works with the Hispanic community at the Scottsdale Prevention Institute, contributed to the exhibition as it evolved recently. Ward is very excited about the show.

"It is coming at a time when immigration is such an important issue," Ward said.