excuse me, we need some space

Working with a real size print of one of the prototypes for the border wall along the frontier between Mexico and the United States, I occupy public space through a performance, confronting both the environment and the people in it with the physical dimension of the project, as a way to begin to understand and question the human implications of a plan of this magnitude. During the event, both the performers and the public become estranged from each other and uncomfortable by the action of occupying and the occupation itself. The Print then becomes the center of everything that surrounds it and inverts the roles of the familiar and the other. The tension built during this confrontation is broken once a member of the public approaches the performers. It is at this moment that a dialogue starts to be established and more people dare to approach, allowing for an exchange of ideas and opinions, enriching both the performers and the spectators that by then, have become part of the performance. By taking the prototype out of its context and confronting it with a new one, I search for a way for people to imagine this happening in their reality — their own country, city, neighborhood — and consequently, to challenge our fear of the other, the roles we play in public space and the empowerment through its occupation.