FRAMED JUÁREZ

Video cycle in which the curators, Manuel Mendoza and Roberto Cárdenas, bring together pieces showing the social dynamics governing border life. Juárez has moved from being a place of hope for emigrants to become a symbol of perdition.

“In Juárez we are all removed from Juárez. Perhaps the only true inhabitants of this place are its dead: they’re not going anywhere. And, with such violent crime, there are so many of them that, together with the families who have run away from the place, they would amount to the ghost population of a small city. You might think that in a place like this there would be plenty of art produced on the theme of drug-related violence and the social dynamics governing border life, but that isn’t the case. Because of this, it has not been easy to bring together the works in the series we call Framed Juárez. With this title, we have tried to summarise the essence of video and its frequency of images per second (frames), playing on the word framed and its associations with crime. Because Juárez, which for so many migrants has been the hope of progress, has been turned into a symbol of perdition. And anyone who has directly collaborated in this has, with their passivity, been an accomplice.”