Fronterismo

A journey along the border between the Unites States and Mexico. Rio Grande and Rio Bravo are two names for one river, a line in the sand, but also a line in the imagination, between the leftovers of the past and the now of the future. The border is a place in the state of mind of America, the motion of the journey, of the encounter, of the potential of change as opposed to isolation, exclusion and the static quality of the border. Four people report on the border problems in this desolate frontier region. Benoot’s slow, sometimes almost meditative visualization of this photogenic location produces stunning images of abandoned roads, ghost towns, whimsical desert landscapes and rock formations and lonely, curving rivers.

Sofie Benoot (1985) travelled to the area as part of her final project at the audiovisual arts department of the Sint-Lukas Academy in Brussels.