“Border Film” —currently in progress— is an encyclopedic document of the infrastructure of border towns and border-crossings, as well as an open-ended meditation on the passage across the political threshold between the United States and Mexico. Produced while traveling repeatedly across the United States-Mexico border, each frame of the film is exposed in both countries to produce a double-image of a landscape suspended between two places. This method of filming—exposing the film twice from points symmetrical on either side of the border—produces a complex wealth of images capturing an array of architectural histories designed to open conversation around foundational issues such as the distribution of wealth and natural resources, transit and trade infrastructure, and immigration. “Border Film” studies how suburban development, population density, commerce and infrastructure intersect with open landscape preserves along the US-Mexico border, while exploring the specific power of an image to render and preserve coincidence between neighboring ecologies.
Sarah Rara’s multi-disciplinary practice—including video, sound, writing, performance—explores the position of witness within fragile systems. Rara is a contributing member of the ongoing project lucky dragons (with Luke Fischbeck). Their work, solo and in collaboration, has been presented at such institutions as the Hammer Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art (as part of the 2008 Whitney Biennial), the Centre Georges Pompidou, Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, London’s Institute for Contemporary Art, PS1 in New York, REDCAT and LACMA in Los Angeles, MOCA Los Angeles, the 54th Venice Biennale, and the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, among others. Their first volume of poems “Earth Breakup” was released by Hesse Press Fall 2015. The chapbook “Chronic Objector” was released by Miniature Garden Spring 2017. Rara is a 2018 recipient of the LACMA Art + Technology fellowship. Rara is Assistant Professor of Moving Image at Williams College.
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