PARA/normal Borders Discussion II: Sky Hopinka + Maggie Nelson

Sky Hopinka + Maggie Nelson
Part II of the PARA/normal Borders Conversation Series

Through film, writing, and critical inquiry, Sky Hopinka and Maggie Nelson explore how artistic practice becomes a way of knowing. Working across experimental film, creative nonfiction, philosophy, and visual culture, their presentations of individual work and conversation will consider how memory, perception, language, and embodied experience shape our understanding of place, history, and one another. Together, they will examine how art creates new ways of seeing, remembering, and imagining the world.

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 Geisel Library’s Archive for New Poetry, Department of Visual Arts, Indigenous Futures Institute, and Gallery QI. 

This event is free and open to the public.

A public reception will immediately follow the event.

Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians) was born and raised in Ferndale, Washington and spent a number of years in Palm Springs and Riverside, CA, Portland, OR, and Milwaukee, WI. In Portland, he studied and taught chinuk wawa, a language indigenous to the Lower Columbia River Basin. His video, photo, and text work centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and landscape–designs of language as containers of culture expressed through personal and non-fictional forms of media.

Maggie Nelson:

[biography forthcoming]

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. 

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 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Teiger Foundation, California Humanities, a nonprofit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the California Arts Council.