“We need to share more of our culture and our connection like this,” she said, pressing her face against a section of fence to watch mariachis play and performers walk on stilts in Nogales, Sonora. “And it shows that we don’t need a border, we don’t need a wall. It just makes me happy to see this happening here.”
Beyond the Wall uses giant puppets to bring people together across boundaries in celebration of our shared humanity. The first performance event took place in Nov 2017 at the US/Mexico border wall in Nogales Arizona/Sonora.
After Public Works Department hosted Beyond The Wall on our Governors Island residency during the summer, I became keen to support this fantastic project.
So when asked if I'd like to be attached as a creative and producing consultant, I hastily agreed to jump on board Jess Kauffman & Ana Diaz Barriga's project and took an impromptu road trip from NYC to Nogales Mexico. For one week, working with the local communities in both Nogales Arizona and Nogales Sonora, I helped project manage the creation of fifteen foot puppets who met for a performance over the border wall.
In 2019, I came on as a co producer where we created a day-long binational festival and art fair in Ambos Nogales, featuring 20 local artists, 13 local musicians/bands, and 5 new giant puppets created and decorated by local kids on either side of the wall.