Border Tuner, 2019  | Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

I must admit to you that on Friday, October 2, I had a time when I nearly lost all perspective on life and faith under the weight of our country’s long list of catastrophes. I think many of us have had these times lately. And then art saved me. Specifically, learning about this art installation, Border Tuner, in an episode of Art in the 21^st Century on PBS. I would highly recommend this episode! Border Tuner was an interactive art installation set up over the border wall between two cities. Learning about this project of light, sound and people healed my mind and filled by heart. I hope it will do the same for you. Here is a brief description.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, a Mexican-born and Canadian artist, hated the searchlights that were used by the authorities at the U.S.-Mexico border. He hated their harsh mission of maintaining the division between people with fear and revelation. Lozano-Hemmer first thought he would do an art installation about the wall between El Paso,  Texas, and Juarez, Mexico, but in talking to the people there he learned they were more interested in connection than division. He was then inspired to create of a new role for those hated lights. Searchlights became the medium of this project. They provided a connection between these two cities.

It worked like this. There were searchlights in each city along both sides of the Rio Grande River. The direction of each light was controlled by a small wheel on a lectern. There was a microphone at the lectern also. A person on each side of the river would step to the lectern to move the wheel and beam of light. When a beam of light from El Paso intersected a beam of light from Juarez, a two-way communication channel was set up. The participants spoke into the microphone and their voices boomed through loudspeakers to the person on the other side. Sometimes they had conversations sharing general information such as age, career, favorite things. Sometimes they shared things much less general like the pain of being on one side of the border separated from family and friends on the other or the name of someone who had died trying to cross or someone who was now in detention. The participants shared gospel kindness with strangers and greeted God on the banks of that river as they did. They laughed and cried and sang and prayed over this heavenly connection of light and sound.

Are you feeling restored?

I appreciate art and often turn to it because I see God in the creative process. In this piece an artist was inspired to change the threatening, blinding light of authority and division into a bridge of beautiful patterns across a night sky and of gentle communication between people who find themselves on opposite sides of a line drawn by history and power. To borrow words from Carl Jung, ”bidden or not bidden” I believe God is in this creativity.

We have much to face in these next weeks and I hope we can remember that God is with us. God is light in this dark time. God is near in our creative ideas even our wildest ones! God is in our compassion, our kindness and in the beauty we are inspired to share. God is near. God’s providence and goodness are the truth and together we can say, “Amen.”

In hope and faith,

Sandy Prouty