Reframing the Border: An Interview with Francisco Donoso
View of Kates-Ferri Projects studio-wide. Image courtesy of the artist and Kates-Ferri Projects.
In his current work, Francisco Donoso takes his chain-link fence motif from 2D to 3D and challenges spectators to face the border as a structure of oppression and separation. Donoso’s latest site-specific installation is not just a mural, it is a place to meet. The installation is made up of seven panels that reveal a 10ft tall and 20ft wide mural. But it is not something to be looked at from afar. To view the work, one must walk up to it, look at it closely, and immerse oneself in it.
Donoso immigrated from Quito, Ecuador as a 5-year old and settled with family in Miami, Florida. As a DACA recipient the issue of immigration is never far from his mind. But while the border wall is usually mentioned, it is not something most people have to look at every day. People can watch the news and turn away from it. Donoso’s body of work, in turn, challenges our distance to it and reminds us that it is a real place full of nuance that needs to be experienced and not just theorized about.
Using a colorful and vibrant palette, Donoso’s work has always depicted the border fence as a complicated structure. The spaces in the fence are portals that accentuate rhythm and motion. There is an ebb and flow that reminds us that the border, much like immigration and immigrants, is always changing. In our conversation below, Donoso shares more about his ever-evolving work.
Grecia Huesca Dominguez (GHD): Francisco, you are in the midst of your Kates-Ferri Projects Residency where you have continued to work with the chain-link fence motif. How has your work with that motif evolved during this residency?
Francisco Donoso (FD): The fence has gone from a flattened stencil to dimensional and architectural, standing in color fields of illusory space that both ground and reject the fences. The dimensional spaces move in and out of legibility, moving from flat planes of color to modulated forms casting shadows and kissed by ambiguous light sources. The pictures suggest the familiarity of real spaces, archways and tunnels, but deny the viewer an easy explanation, rather they ask the viewer to consider the precariousness of place and belonging.
GHD: As we speak, the border fence is between us and I can’t help but think about how it separates but also our continued communication and collaboration defies its existence. Your work both acknowledges the physical structure and dares to reimagine it. How does your work reimagine the border fence?
FD: I’m exploring the fence as an architecture of play, care, transformation, and possibility, subverting its power as a symbol and architecture of violence, dislocation, and trauma. I’m asking: what if the fence was there to transition you into your next stage in life? What if the fence was a structure of transformation that welcomed your humanity? What if the fence, and the border that it symbolizes, was a way to signify, and grant passage, rather than entrapment? In some ways I am asking the fence to stop being a fence. I’m subverting its utility. I’m helping it to heal. The fence in my work is never fully realized. It’s in a constant state of construction and deconstruction, always in flux, moving in and out of completion. I think of the paintings as spaces within our psyche, where forces compete for resolution, but never lock into place.
GHD: You have a site-specific installation in the studio that takes the chain-link fence motif from the canvas and literally physically expands it into a structure we have to witness. What is the importance of witnessing it as a structure, especially in New York, where you are thousands of miles away from the Southern border?
FD: The installation is both human scale, and larger than life. It's immersive and invites the viewer into its world of dizzying overall color and pattern. There are moments where everything in sight is charged and you’re enveloped in it. Unlike the southern border fence, the energy created by the installation isn’t villainous or violent, it’s vibrant and seductive. There is a component to experiencing the work that is theatrical or monumental, which invites introspection. I have a spiritual connection to color and pattern at this scale. You almost feel like you’re swimming in it. Witnessing the installation allows for new possible realities to emerge. The fence in the work is not machine-made, it’s not rigid and it’s not sterile. It’s imbued with movement, and softened by the gesture of the hand. There is a sense that the fence is cascading throughout the space, dancing and alive. I’m bearing witness to survival, and to resilience.
GHD: Over the years, we have seen the violence at the border fence escalate, especially against Black immigrants. The border is both a place synonymous with violence but also of hope. Immigrants trek thousands of miles and through numerous countries to arrive at the place that they hope will mark a new start for their lives. How do you navigate the nuance of what this place means in your work?
FD: My family came to the US from Ecuador 28 years ago, and set roots down in Miami, Florida. As an undocumented individual with DACA, my relationship to home and belonging change every day. The ongoing, and escalating criminalization of migrants and refugees in the US, particularly Black immigrants, keeps the image of the fence etched in my mind. Borders don’t only exist in the physical world, they also exist in our minds and deep within us. Sometimes the journeys taken in migration are not the obvious ones of crossing international borders and fighting to adjust your status. There are journeys happening internally, and we have to find a way of healing and liberating ourselves so that we can exist in our fullest humanity—not the one mediated by authorities. I want my work to be a moment of respite for those that have experienced the traumas of migration. I want them to find a way of retelling their story that makes room for play, delight and abstraction. I want my work to suggest that every border can be dismantled and crossed, every journey can be navigated, and every ICE will eventually melt.
GHD: As we are seeing during your current residency, your work is evolving. Next year, you will have your first major solo exhibition at Second Street Gallery in Charlottesville, VA in 2022. How do you imagine your work will continue to evolve and take new forms?
FD: I imagine creating more large-scale canvases that continue to explore the fence as architecture of constant change and passage. I want to keep thinking of them as portals, tunnels, and doorways—sites, where transformation is welcomed. I imagine the installation growing and taking form based on the physical gallery space, but also responding to the history of Charlottesville as an historic site—often remembered for the white supremacist rally of 2017. I’m excited to work with the greater Charlottesville community, including students at the University of Virginia, to reimagine borders and fences, reclaim agency for ourselves, and continue imaging a future where migration is the beginning, not the end, of the story.
GHD: I only have one more question. As you imagine your own future, what are you hopeful for as an artist, an immigrant, and just as Francisco?
FD: I’m humbled by every opportunity to share my work, and continue making my work. The cards are stacked against you when you’re an artist—even more so with the additional barriers that come from being undocumented. I hope that we (the larger undocumented community which includes formerly undocumented people) are able to imagine ourselves free from the trappings of citizenship and nationalism. I hope that while we continue to fight for legislation and legal change, we center the struggles of Black and Indigenous immigrants and refugees, acknowledging the intersectionality of the “immigrant issue.” I hope that more undocumented artists and art workers rise in the ranks of the art world—within institutions, in positions of leadership, as a collector base, within contemporary art practices. I hope I get to see the southern border demolished within my lifetime.
Grecia Huesca Dominguez is the author of the children's book, Dear Abuelo, finalist of the Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children's Book Award. Her poetry has appeared in Vogue México, The Acentos Review, and The Breakbeat Poets: LatiNext anthology. At the age of ten, she moved from Veracruz, Mexico to the Hudson Valley, where she lived for 21 years. In 2021, she moved to Querétaro, México where she currently resides with her daughter.