From the Back Cover
Border Cantospresents a unique collaboration between photographer Richard Misrach and composer Guillermo Galindo. Misrach has been photographing the two-thousand-mile border between the U.S. and Mexico since 2004, with increased focus starting in 2009--resulting in a distinct melding of the artist as documentarian and interpreter. The latest installation in Misrach's ongoing Desert Cantos series, this book includes several suites of photographs--some made with a large-format camera and others that have been captured with an iPhone. Misrach and Galindo have worked together to create pieces that both report on and transform the artifacts of migration: water bottles, clothing, backpacks, Border Patrol drag tires, spent shotgun shells, ladders, and sections of the Border Wall itself, which Galindo then fashions into instruments to be performed as unique sound-generating devices. He also imagines graphic musical scores, many of which use Misrach's photographs as points of departure. More than two dozen sculpture-instruments, scores, instrument designs, and prompts to videos of performances by Galindo on the instruments are included in this volume. The interplay of these two practices is explored by critic, journalist, and curator Josh Kun, who contextualizes their collaboration within the evolving political and cultural conversation about the border and immigration--topics of increasing urgency today.
Galindo, Guillermo: - Guillermo Galindo is an experimental composer. His interpretations of concepts such as musical form, time perception, music notation, sonic archetypes, and sound-generating devices span a wide spectrum of artistic works performed and shown at major festivals, concert halls, and art exhibitions throughout the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Asia.
Kun, Josh: - Josh Kun is an Associate Professor in the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism. His books include "Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America" (California, 2005) and "Songs in the Key of Los Angeles: Sheet Music and the Making of Southern California" (Angel City Press, 2013).Laura Pulido is Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at USC. Her books include "Black, Brown, Yellow, and Left: Radical Activism in Los Angeles" (California, 2006) and "A People s Guide to Los Angeles" (California, 2012).
Misrach, Richard: - Richard Misrach is one of the most influential photographers of his generation, well-known for his ongoing project Desert Cantos. His work is held by major institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. He is the recipient of four National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Kulturpreis for Lifetime Achievement in Photography. His books with Aperture include Violent Legacies (1992), On the Beach (2007), Destroy This Memory (2010), Petrochemical America (with Kate Orff, 2012), Golden Gate (2012), The Mysterious Opacity of Other Beings (2015), and Border Cantos (with Guillermo Galindo, 2016).
