Mapping Porous Borders

Mapping Porous Borders is an ongoing project that involves three artists in Chile and New Zealand working together and experimenting within and between their creative disciplines. The project began in 2018 when New Zealand artist alys longley started working with Chilean artist Máximo Corvalán-Pincheira and dance artist Macarena Campbell-Parra, who she had previously met while taking part in the Sur Sur project. Together, they created a performance at Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos (Museum of Memory and Human Rights) in Santiago. The performance was also called Mapping Porous Borders. They further developed this performance at the 18 Horas Entre Nosotros (18 hours between us) symposium in Auckland, which was supported by University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau.

In 2019, alys, Macarena and Máximo continued working together in Chile on new creative interdisciplinary work, which they called Extractive Loyalties. The three artists had received a residency at School of the Art Institute of Chicago to develop this work, but only alys was able to take up the residency due to the political situation in Chile at the time.

When the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020, alys, Macarena and Máximo started to use the project Mapping Porous Borders to explore how people can stay in touch with each other in different countries, especially when borders are closed. They examined the poetics of moving across distances when borders are closed and being together despite being separated and isolated. They mapped the paradoxes of protection and control, such as the shift in Chile from wearing a handkerchief over your mouth being illegal to prevent social resistance to being required to prevent a COVID-19 outbreak. They also measured the momentum pathways of toxicity and hope on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.

This creative research led the three artists to develop the project Beberemos El Vino Nuevo, Juntos! | Let Us Drink the New Wine, Together! This project involved them working with artists around the world on initiatives to keep in touch by post, digital mapping, online performance and a virtual interactive exhibition.

alys, Macarena and Máximo have shared their experience of working together on Mapping Porous Borders at the Modes of Capture Symposium in Ireland in 2020 and 2021. They have also worked remotely with a team of performance artists at the dance centre at Montreal’s Centre de Création o Vertigo, which led to them publishing the online artist book Language is An Intangible Bridge in 2021. Macarena has since received a grant from the Government of Chile to develop her work in Chile, through the Proyecto Cartòn (cardboard project).

Published 02 November 2023

Dates

Launched in 2018

Venues

Centre de Création o Vertigo, Montreal, Canada

Modes of Capture Symposium, Ireland

Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos, Santiago, Chile

Media links

alys longley. 2021. The Other Country That You Are: A Performative Essay and Video Work Exploring Radical Kindness in the Chilean Peoples Uprising of 2019. Performance Paradigm, 16.

Language is An Intangible Bridge website

Lucy Fandel. 4 December 2020. Disrupting Zoom Protocol: Traveling Inside and Out with Alys Longley and Lo Bil. Mileux Institute for Arts, Culture and Technology.

University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau. 19 April 2022. Joining Creative Hands Across the Oceans When Borders Were Closed. University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau.

Further reading

Modes of Capture Symposium 2020 website

Languages of delivery

English

Spanish

Visit the project site

Mapping Porous Borders website