| Summary/Abstract |
This paper explores through visual arts the making of borders and nations and how they affect bodies and their mobility through the work of visual artist Susan Harbage Page. Harbage Page has created work about the U.S-Mexico Border since 2007 which explores why certain bodies are contested due to race, or status (refugee vs. illegal), and personal histories (culture/birthplace/social/marriage). This article examines how prescribed roles determine different levels of access to safety, work, and privilege. How social and political contexts of race, class, gender, and sex determine how an individual body experiences bordering practices. How a passport becomes one of the symbols agreed upon as a marker of belonging in a particular nation and only functions if it is respected and understood by other nations outside its boundary lines. It also explores the positionality and personal history of the researcher/artist and the role it plays in representation and the influence it has on visual research and artistic production. This article returns the discussion of borders back to embodiment and the roles that are projected onto bodies and then used to sift those bodies into differing terrains through bordering practices. It explores ways in which borders both serve to protect, exclude, and contain. This article is a first-person narrative that combines artistic practice with personal history to understand how situated knowledge impacts the production of artwork addressing social justice issues.
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