Photographer Makes a Political Point With a Death-Defying Highline Walk Between the US and Mexico Border

Back in January, as a standoff over funding for President Donald
Trump’s Southern boarder wall led to a government shutdown, a
filmmaker and a highline walker had an grand idea. They hatched a
plan to create a dramatic artwork that would connect the the United
States and Mexico with a slackline across the Rio Grande.

As debates over the perceived dangers of illegal immigration
raged in Congress, two teams of highline experts from Mexico and
the US met on the river, paddling together downstream some 20 miles
into gorgeous Santa Elena Cavern, with its
1,500-foot-tall cliffs. There, they worked together to rig a
highline some 500 feet in the air.

Two men crossed this precarious 300-foot-long bridge, Corbin
Kunst from the Texas side, and Mexican slackliner Jamie Maruffo
from the Mexican side.

“I don’t know if there could be a more powerful symbol of
connection between two people, between two lands, than I could ever
imagine,” filmmaker Kylor Melton, who documented the occasion
in his film The Imaginary Line, told artnet
News. The 11-minute short was released yesterday on YouTube.

This isn’t the first work of art to connect the two sides of the
border to make a political point. Earlier this summer, the
architecture studio Rael San Fratello transformed part of the
border fence into a row of see-saws, allowing children on
either side to play with one another, in a temporary art piece
titled Teeter-Totter Wall. It quickly went viral.

The idea of a slackline connecting the two countries had been on
Kunst’s mind for years, since before Trump took office.
(Popularlized in the 1980s, slacklining differs from the more
famous tightrope in that it uses a length of flat webbing, rather
than a wire cable, allowing the line to bounce around.) “I saw a
picture of Santa Elena Canyon,” Kunst told artnet News. “I knew it
would be perfect for a slackline—it’s just kind of screaming for
one. And the fact that one side is Mexico and one side is the
United States, to be able to literally connect the countries with a
bridge, so to speak, really drew me in.”

When the debate over the border wall began to heat up, he
decided to call Melton. It was the filmmaker who convinced Kunst
that now was the time to make this dream a reality. “I really
wanted this to be an art piece,” Kunst said. “Art is one of the
greatest forms of resilience and resistance and also inspiration
for people.”

The duo set to work planning for the action. It was crucial to
have a representative from both countries walking the slackline,
and to have teams from both countries rigging the line,
illustrating the opportunity for connection and collaboration even
as Trump was insisting on the need to erect barriers.

“I think of slacklining as a team sport,” Kunst explained.
“You’re literally trusting your rigging team with your life, so I
thought that would be a really powerful symbol to have a Mexican
team and an American team building the slackline together.”

To travel down the river, the US team secured a backcountry
permit, but there is no equivalent recreational infrastructure on
the Mexican side—the National Park Service website actually
includes a notice warning of illegal border crossings in the Santa
Elena Canyon, so Melton and Kunst consulted with lawyers to make
sure they were acting in accordance with the law.

And even though the Park Service was closed during the shutdown,
the project was careful to leave no trace—unlike visitors at other,
more heavily touristed parks—securing the highline by slinging
ropes around large, secure boulders.

On January 25, the final day of the 35-day shutdown, Maruffo set
foot on the slackline, making the precarious crossing high above
the Rio Grande. Kunst followed. (Both were tethered to the line for
safety.) “There was this moment when Corbin said, ‘I’ve walked
slacklines for years, but this is the first time slack line has
actually meant something beyond myself,’” Melton recalled.

So far, Melton said, he’s been overwhelmed by reactions to the
film, which he’s debuted the 5Point Film
Festival in Colorado. “It’s such a simple idea, but the
way that people have connected to it has been absolutely humbling,”
he said. “I hope that the film is a piece of art that people
can spark a conversation and encourage audiences to engage with
these issues.”

Watch the film the Imaginary
Line below. 

The post Photographer Makes a Political Point With a
Death-Defying Highline Walk Between the US and Mexico Border
appeared first on artnet News.