Along the Border

Along the Border presents the work of experimental composer, multimedia artist, and performance artist Guillermo Galindo to explore the economic, political, and social issues around the Mexico-United States border. Since 2009, Galindo has created a series of instruments, or as Galindo calls them, “cybertotemic sonic objects,” that are crafted from discarded objects found at multiple sites along the 2000-mile national divide. On exhibit are works constructed from discarded cans, shoes, bicycle wheels, wood, leather, and more.

Galindo composes and performs with these instruments, and has created printed scores that pull from the graphic score tradition of composers like John Cage and Cornelius Cardew. For his Flags series — one of which will also be on exhibit — Galindo printed a variety of unique systems of notation onto several weathered flags found at the border, originally used to indicate the presence of water tanks stationed in the Calexico desert.