Border Craft

Border Craft is a group exhibition featuring contemporary artists employing craft practices to address the geopolitical realities of borderland regions, including San Diego–Tijuana. The works on view, along with a series of accompanying public programs, serve as a feminist and critical counterpoint to dehumanizing systems designed to divide people and cultures. Tanya Aguiñiga, one of the exhibiting artists and a Longenecker-Roth Artist in Residence at UC San Diego’s Department of Visual Arts, describes her art and activism at the US–Mexico border as a “song to collapse the wall.” This statement points to the sense of interconnection and poetic resilience present across the works on display, which include ceramics, furniture, quilts, weavings, embroidery, video, and performance.

Participating artists: Tanya Aguiñiga, Jackie Amézquita, Margarita Cabrera, Sofía Córdova, Isidro Pérez García, tercas (Mely Barragán and Irma Sofia Poeter), Marisa Raygoza.

Curated by Ceci Moss, Director and Chief Curator of the Mandeville Art Gallery and Professor of Practice, Visual Arts

Public programs 
All events are free and take place in person at the Mandeville Art Gallery, unless indicated otherwise.

Border Craft opening celebration: Saturday, March 1, 2025, 2–6pm
Exhibiting artist Isidro Pérez García (UC San Diego, MFA in Visual Arts, ’22) performs Tuleño Weaves the Center at 3pm. This event coincides with the Graduate Open Studios at the Visual Arts Facility. Open Studios will feature MFA and PhD artists’ open studios, exhibitions, screenings, and publications produced in the Department of Visual Arts. 

Intercultural Writing Workshop Reading: Wednesday, March 12th, 2025, 5–6pm
Led by Dr. Amy Sara Carroll (Associate Professor of Literature and Writing, UC San Diego)

Fabiola Carranza’s The Mexican Husband / Un marido mexicano: Wednesday, April 2, 2025, 5–6pm
This bilingual adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s one-act play The Jewish Wife (1937) follows the events of a husband’s final night with his wife in Los Angeles before running for the Mexican border. The Mexican Husband / Un marido mexicano is an account of the ways in which exclusionary immigration policies play out. It asks questions about the state of humanity in an era of immigration enforcement, border walls, and enduring prejudice, both visible and invisible. Fabiola Carranza is an artist, educator, and PhD candidate in Art Practice at UC San Diego.

Border Art in Special Collections & Archives: Wednesday May 21, 2025, 1–2pm
Location: Geisel Instruction Room 1. Explore border-related arts collections held by UC San Diego’s Special Collections & Archives, including artworks, artifacts, and artists’ books from the Border Art Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo, inSite Archive, and more. This librarian-guided exploration is geared specifically for undergraduate students across all disciplines. Dive deeper into the regional historical contexts of the Border Craft exhibit and learn about how you can use archives to inspire your own creative projects and research.

Guest lecture by exhibiting artist Jackie Amézquita: Tuesday, May 25, 2025, 6:30–8pm
Location: SME 149, Structural & Materials Engineering, UC San Diego. Organized as part of the Department of Visual Arts’ Guest Lecture Series.

Upcoming exhibitions
Text Messages: July 1–September 27, 2025, Text Messages is a program presented on the Mandeville Art Gallery’s exterior screen, comprised of works by digital artists displaying text manipulated and hijacked using programming and code. The words, phrases, and typography presented on view reveal the influence of machines on the production of meaning and the exercise of power within the context of social media, advertising, online censorship, and artificial intelligence. Artists: Maya Man, Winnie Soon, Sasha Stiles

Border Craft and Text Messages are made possible by Teiger Foundation.

About the Mandeville Art Gallery
The Mandeville Art Gallery, previously known as the University Art Gallery, is a long-standing fixture on the UC San Diego campus with a five-decade history of presenting innovative art in the context of a major research university. Managed by the School of Arts and Humanities and located on the west end of Mandeville Center, the gallery operates as an institute for transformative contemporary art serving both the university and the local community, and it newly re-opened after extensive renovations in March 2023.

Hours: Wednesday–Saturday, 12–8pm. Admission: free. Parking & directions.