A border is not only a geographic line, but a socially, politically, and culturally produced system that organizes movement, identity, power, and belonging. The border zone functions as both a concrete territorial infrastructure where intensified surveillance, militarization and expanded, but nebulous legal authority prevail, and an invisible, distributed condition that permeates far beyond the physical border line. Today, immigration/border enforcement and surveillance operations penetrate the nation’s interior, making clear that the border has become a mobile regime rather than a fixed line.
The title PARA/normal Borders invokes a paranormal dimension: the border as a spectral, liminal threshold where the “normal” rules out rights, visibility, and humanity are haunted and suspended. Border enforcement has continued to evolve into a more invasive and parasitic entity that drains resources and agency through surveillance and control that refuses to stay contained at the line, while presenting itself as a protective defense.
PARA/normal Borders conceives of the borderlands as a thin place where spirits, ancestors, and displaced identities move freely. In this conceptualization, it functions as a multi-dimensional space: physically, it is a landscape of migration and surveillance; metaphysically, it operates as a membrane between realities; and psychologically, it serves as a collective unconscious of trauma and transformation. In this exhibition, the paranormal emerges as a critical mode of storytelling, tracing the presence of invisibility, historical erasure, and embodied memory.
Recognizing that the paranormal has often been shaped through a colonial epistemology that fractures the spiritual from the material, the exhibition situates spectral narratives as contested terrain. While colonial discourse has historically mobilized the supernatural to justify land theft, racial hierarchies, and territorial control, Indigenous and diasporic traditions mobilize the paranormal as a counter-archive; a mode of resistance, one that sustains cultural memory and articulates historical trauma.
PARA/normal Borders encompasses apparitions, visions, miracles, hauntings, synchronicities, cryptids, altered states, ancestral presences, and technological spirits, as well as the everyday strangeness produced by surveillance regimes, border architectures, disappearances, and ecological collapse. The paranormal marks moments when the border’s invisible forces become perceptible—when the unseen asserts itself and suppressed histories, hauntologies, and speculative realities surface. In this way, the paranormal functions as a parallel epistemology shaped by crossing, survival, and instability.
Call Description
The MexiCali Biennial presents PARA/normal Borders, a nomadic series of exhibitions and programs which aim to identify the combined regions of California and Mexico as a thin place where spirits, ancestors, and displaced identities move freely. In this conceptualization, it functions as a multi-dimensional space: physically, it is a landscape of migration and surveillance; metaphysically, it operates as a membrane between realities; and psychologically, it serves as a collective unconscious of trauma and transformation. In this exhibition, the paranormal emerges as a critical mode of storytelling, tracing the presence of invisibility, historical erasure, and embodied memory.
To gain a deeper understanding of previously accepted works, project scope, and the research framework of PARA/normal Borders, applicants are strongly encouraged to explore the PROJECT ONTOLOGY as well as current and archived projects at mexicalibiennial.org. FAQ's and overview can be found HERE.
IMPORTANT DATES & LOCATIONS | FECHAS Y LUGARES IMPORTANTES
Open Call Submission Period: February 13 – April 26, 2026
October – December 2026 | PARA/normal Borders in the borderlands
- Steppling Art Gallery at San Diego State University, Imperial Valley Campus (Calexico)
- Arista 1701 (Mexicali). Other venues are likely to be added.
- Opportunities to activate the border fence available on the Mexico side only.
February – August, 2027 | PARA/normal Borders at the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Arts and Culture of the Riverside Arts Museum
Curators | Curadores:
PARA/normal Borders is curated by Ed Gómez, María Esther Fernández, and Luis G. Hernandez.
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Click image below for an interactive visual research map.
PARA/normal Borders is possible through generous support from the Mellon Foundation, Teiger Foundation, the California Arts Council, and California Humanities.