"Looming," a multimedia art exhibit in San Ysidro, takes a conceptual look at borders.
The Cuban-born visual artist and programmer Iván Abreu said he wanted to explore the idea of the U.S.-Mexico border as a kind of "third country."
“It means you don’t belong to Mexico, you don’t belong to the U.S. You belong to the border. And that condition of a third place really interests me," he said.
The exhibit features digital images of the horizon at the border, using views from Tijuana toward San Diego as a reference. The images shift in real-time in accordance with weather report data, including factors like visibility.
"I noticed the attention that neighboring cities always get from those who live in border cities," he said.
Abreu doesn't live at the border — he lives in Mexico City. But he was familiar with the border region because he had frequently visited Tijuana. This is his first exhibit in San Diego County. It runs through October 2 at The Front Gallery in San Ysidro.
The exhibit includes a landscape of spiral staircases, suggestive of the desire to see farther into the distance, beyond borders, Abreu said.
"There are the themes that are the big themes of life," he said. "Like identity. Like death. Like violence. They're like the mega-themes, that almost become non-themes. I think what makes observers begin to awaken to them is if you find a new way to portray them."
He said he wanted to find a new way to reflect on the theme of borders.
Curator Illya Haro said Abreu's abstract approach attracted her to his work. She said the theme of borders has long been contemplated from the same literal perspective by academics, poets and other artists.
"This isn't literal," Haro said. "It's very poetic. It invites us to reflect, but in a completely new way."
