PARA/normal Borders Discussion I: Josh Kun + Alex Rivera
Josh Kun + Alex Rivera
Part I of the PARA/normal Borders Conversation Series
Scholar Josh Kun (Cultural historian; USC Vice Provost for the Arts and USC Annenberg Professor of Communication) and Alex Rivera (Filmmaker and Co-Founder of Borderlands Cinematic Arts at ASU) explore how music, film, media, and speculative storytelling shape the ways histories are recorded, circulated, and remembered within the U.S.–Mexico borderlands. Together, they will present work and engage in a conversation that considers how artistic and scholarly practices connect communities, recover overlooked histories, and imagine new futures.
PARA/normal Borders is the 2026–27 edition of the MexiCali Biennial, a multidisciplinary exhibition and public humanities initiative exploring the borderlands as a space where visible and invisible histories converge. Rather than treating the border solely as a geopolitical boundary, the project approaches it as a cultural, psychological, ecological, and technological condition that shapes contemporary life.
Inspired by the concept of the borderlands as a “thin place,” PARA/normal Borders considers how migration, language, memory, Indigenous knowledge, media, surveillance, and speculative futures intersect across the California–Mexico border region. Through exhibitions, performances, publications, research initiatives, and public conversations, the Biennial invites artists, writers, scholars, and communities to examine the many ways borders continue to influence how we remember, imagine, and inhabit the world.
The PARA/normal Borders Conversation Series brings together MacArthur Fellows whose work expands our understanding of borders across literature, film, visual art, music, and critical scholarship.
This program is co-presented by the MexiCali Biennial and the University of California, San Diego Department of Literature’s New Writing Series, in partnership with the University of California, San Diego Department of Visual Arts and the Archive for New Poetry.
This event is free and open to the public.
A public reception will immediately follow the event.
Josh Kun is a cultural historian, writer, and curator whose work focuses on the arts and politics of cultural connection. He is the inaugural Vice Provost for the Arts at USC where he is Professor and Chair in Cross-Cultural Communication in the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. His books include Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America, Songs in the Key of Los Angeles, The Tide Was Always High: The Music of Latin America in Los Angeles, and Double Vision: The Photography of George Rodriguez. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, New Yorker, and many other publications. As a curator of exhibitions and performances, he has worked with Getty, The Huntington, Grammy Museum, New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation, California African American Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Hammer Museum, among others. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a Berlin Prize, and an American Book Award.
Alex Rivera is an award-winning filmmaker whose work explores themes of globalization, migration, and technology. His first feature film, a cyberpunk thriller set in Tijuana, Mexico, ‘Sleep Dealer,’ won multiple awards at Sundance and Berlin. Rivera’s second feature, a documentary/scripted hybrid set in an immigrant detention center, ‘The Infiltrators,’ won the NEXT: Audience Award and the Innovator Award at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, and was released theatrically in the U.S. Rivera’s work has been supported by the Ford Foundation, Creative Capital, the Open Society Institute, and many others. He is a 2021 MacArthur Fellow and an Associate Professor of Filmmaking Practice at ASU’s Sidney Poitier New American Film School.
About the Organizers:
The MexiCali Biennial is a nonprofit contemporary art organization dedicated to exploring the cultural, social, and political complexities of the California–Mexico border region through exhibitions, research, publications, and public programming. Since its founding in 2006, the Biennial has brought together artists, scholars, writers, and community partners to examine the U.S.–Mexico border not simply as a geopolitical boundary, but as a dynamic site of exchange, creativity, and critical inquiry. The 2026–27 edition, PARA/normal Borders, explores the borderlands as a “thin place” where histories, memories, languages, technologies, and speculative futures converge. Through exhibitions, conversations, performances, and educational initiatives across Southern California and Baja California, the MexiCali Biennial fosters interdisciplinary dialogue and expands public understanding of the border as a space of artistic experimentation and cultural imagination. Learn more at mexicalibiennial.org.
Whittier College is a private liberal arts institution founded in 1887, recognized for its commitment to interdisciplinary learning, civic engagement, and social justice. Located in the historic city of Whittier, California, the College has long supported public dialogue through exhibitions, performances, lectures, and community partnerships that connect scholarship with the broader public.
UC San Diego’s New Writing Series invites local, national, and international authors to read and perform throughout the academic year. Welcoming a wide range of authors and genres, including playwrights, poets, translators, essayists, critics, fiction writers, and performance artists, the New Writing Series celebrates both emerging and established award-winning writers. Readers also include Department of Literature faculty and graduate students in the MFA Program in Writing. The readings are followed by in-depth question and answer periods that center on craft and artistic practice.
PARA/normal Borders is made possible through support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation through its X-Grant program celebrating the Foundation’s 40th anniversary. Additional support is provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Teiger Foundation, California Humanities, a nonprofit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the California Arts Council.