Installation Views for The Border Project: Soundscapes, Landscapes, and Lifescapes at the University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona
“Seven years ago, when hundreds of thousands of Mexicans were pouring into Arizona, American photographer Paul Turounet walked the borderlands.
Unlike the migrants, he stayed on the Sonoran side of the international line. His mission was to photograph the travelers on one of the most important days of their lives—the day they would leave their country and cross into el Norte.
Turounet gave them small Polaroid portraits as a memento. For himself—and for us—he made large black-and-white pigment photos on gleaming aluminum. These wrenching, gorgeous images, tacked to a grim swath of the real border wall salvaged from San Diego, are a highlight of The Border Project, the sprawling exhibition now at the University of Arizona Museum of Art.
The 11 photos in his “Estamos Buscando A / We’re Looking For” capture both hope and fear on the faces of the travelers. A woman named Joseline smiles in anticipation as she rides in the back of a pickup, but her little girl, sitting next to her, looks puzzled. Why, the child must wonder, are they leaving their home? The dusty young men resting in a desert shelter seem equally worried, with good reason.
That year, 2004 into 2005, at least 282 migrants were found dead on the other side of the border in the Arizona desert.
Turounet’s pictures confront some of the dangers of the trail. A makeshift migrant grave, covered with stones by fellow travelers, is in one. A bra is strung out across prickly desert plants in another, a sign of the brutality that’s another risk of the trail. Migrants report that smugglers who rape women leave their bras behind as a trophy—and a warning.
The work is steeped in art history. Turounet gave his pictures the look of 19th-century tintypes by printing them on aluminum, linking them to portraits of the immigrants who arrived a century ago on ships from Europe, dressed in rags and as desperate as the latest arrivals. The metal, the artist notes, also conjures up Mexican retablos, the religious folk paintings on tin painted in thanksgiving for safe passage through danger.
All by itself, Turounet’s wonderful piece makes this uneven exhibition worthwhile.”
– from exhibition review Despite the Hardships by Margaret Regan for Tucson Weekly
