A Line in the Sand

Below Mount Cristo Rey, where one can stand in the United States and Mexico simultaneously, a family of five runs as fast as they can toward an opening underneath the train tracks.

Below Mount Cristo Rey, where one can stand in the United States and Mexico simultaneously, a family of five runs as fast as they can toward an opening underneath the train tracks. This is one of the moments I observed while working on A Line in the Sand, an ongoing series of photographs that integrates border politics, accessibility, separation, secrecy, intimacy, and the complexities of human nature.

Inspired by navigating a cross-border relationship with my Palestinian-Canadian partner, I critically document the larger ecosystem and polarizing nature of the United States' policies and border relations with its neighbors to the north and south. Over the course of two years, I have been making images in places that divide, barriers that are real and imagined, across Mexico, the United States, and Canada. The border crisis has never been more present than it is right now and it is only going to get more challenging in the next four years of the incoming United States presidency. I need to continue exploring the existing tensions in these border areas. I am adding to the traditions of contemporary photography by responding to and documenting the current geopolitical climate. It has never been more important to photograph these areas in these precarious times of division.