Director Linx Selby presents Pueblo Mágico: Border Stories, a portrait of her hometown, Patagonia, Arizona, nestled in the heart of the Sonoran borderlands. Through the shared stories of residents whose families have spanned the US/Mexico border for generations, we delve into the personal and political day-to-day of an area currently under the spotlight of national media attention.

When we talk about the border in public discourse we refer to ‘the wall,’ hard lines and fixed identities, when in fact, upon closer look, we realize that these things do not exist. At the core of the “American dream” is a shared desire for prosperity and community. The testimonies of those making lives in these border towns, attest to this idea: borders are in fact fluid and varied, they challenge the dichotomy between left and right, between North and South. This is a perspective of the border that is less often told.

This installation serves to evoke the poignancy of the lived border experience. As the viewer encounters personal effects strewn along a cinder-block wall, they reenact real encounters that residents of the border experience daily, finding objects left behind by migrants that have braved the Sonoran Desert.

The illustrative map of the border area challenges the institutionalized idea of the border as a solid line dividing two halves. Rather, as we connect the dots between points on the map, between border towns in the US and Mexico, we render beautiful curves and crossovers.

Directed by Linx Selby
Co-curated byLinx Selby and Morgane Lecocq Lemieux

Helpful links:

No More Deaths | No Más Muertes
Border Patrol Victims Network – Facebook Page
Green valley samaritans
Kino border initiative
Hiram Gonzalez Machi (live border news) – Facebook Page