Loading...

Performing the Border, 1999

Ursula Biemann documents female labour issues in Ciudad Juárez, a border city that attracts many teenage girls from central Mexico hoping to cross the border into the adjoining city of El Paso, in the U.S. state of Texas. Trapped, and forced to work as cheap labour in the numerous maquiladoras companies, many supplement their income with prostitution. Assembling electronic and digital equipment, these American industries are located in Mexico adjacent to the border with the U.S. to take advantage of the Maquila decree, which allows them to avoid paying taxes in Mexico, employ cheaper labour than in the United States and to export their products without border tariffs. Biemann exposes the dangers, abuses and fragility in which these women live, caught between factory work in the IT industry and life in the slums. For the artist, the border is a discursive construction articulated through the border crossing and the power relationship between the two nations. Biemann also addresses the serial murder and rape of young women in Ciudad Juárez that has been ongoing since 1993.


Technical details

Original title:
Performing the Border
Registration number:
1826
Artist:
Biemann, Ursula
Date created:
1999
Date acquired:
2002
Fonds:
MACBA Collection. MACBA Foundation
Object type:
Audiovisual recording
Media:
Single-channel video, colour, sound, 43 min
Credits:
MACBA Collection. MACBA Foundation. Work purchased thanks to Taller de la Fundació
Copyright:
© Ursula Biemann
It has accessibility resources:
No

The MACBA Collection features Catalan, Spanish and international art and, although it includes works from the 1920s onwards, its primary focus is on the period between the 1960s and the present.

For more information on the work or the artist, please consult MACBA's Library. To request a loan of the work, please write to colleccio [at] macba.cat.

If you need a high resolution image of the work, you must submit an image loan request.


Related

Images

Ursula Biemann "Performing the Border", 1999
Ursula Biemann "Performing the Border", 1999
Ursula Biemann "Performing the Border", 1999