MexiCali Biennial: Then, Now, Next

MexiCali Biennial: Then, Now, Next brings together scholars, art historians, curators, and artists to examine the evolving frameworks that shape artistic production in and around the U.S.–Mexico borderlands. This convening foregrounds the border not only as a geopolitical condition, but as a conceptual, material, and methodological site—one that continues to generate new forms of artistic inquiry and cultural exchange.

Across a series of focused discussions, participants will engage key concepts that have defined and challenged border art practices over the past several decades. Topics include portability and site-specificity; the material and symbolic role of border walls and fences; the use of readymades and everyday objects; and the tension between local contexts and global circulation.

The symposium also addresses broader structural questions: how biennial models operate within and against center–periphery dynamics; how archives are constructed, activated, and contested; and how surveillance, mobility, and displacement inform both artistic production and curatorial strategy. Presenters will reflect on methods for navigating the border as a space of activation—through exhibitions, interventions, and public programming—while also reconsidering the role of museums and alternative spaces in shaping these narratives.

This gathering offers an opportunity to situate contemporary practices within longer trajectories of border-based cultural production, while opening space for new approaches to research, exhibition-making, and cross-border dialogue.

Agenda and speaker list to come.