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28 THE OAKVILLE BEAVER Friday, October 29, 1999 P h o to by P e te r C. M cC usker P h o to exh ib it d ep icts d ivision b etw een h aves and h a v e-n o ts By Sheila Creighton SPECIAL TO THE BEAVER Geoffrey James went to Tijuana, Mexico nearly two years ago looking for lobster; instead, he found art. The subject that captivated his attention was a 14-mile fence between San Diego, California and Tijuana, which was built from a recycled metal landing strip left from the Gulf War. The fence, which starts in the Pacif ic Ocean and ends in the foothills of the Otay Mountains, was built as part of Operation Gatekeeper, an American initiative in 1993/94 to curb illegal immigrants. "W hen I first saw the fence it looked so surreal," James said at a recent artist's lecture in Centennial Gallery where his exhibit Running Fence is on display until Dec. 5th. Running Fence consists of 32 large format black-and-white photographs of the border fence. He took these photographs between January and April of 1997. The photographer-artist admits that he stumbled upon his subject by acci dent. "I visited San Diego, but it was a glazed, rich town - 1 had no interest in photographing it. I had gone to Mexico to eat lobster on the beach. When I saw the fence for the first time, I wanted to photograph it," he explained. "I lived in a little hotel on the beach and went out each day and some nights with my large 8" by 10" view camera." W hile photographing the fence, James witnessed a daily exodus of m ostly young men trying to gain access into the United States. "These are people playing their last card", he said o f the scene. "This 10foot-high fence is almost completely ineffective, even though there is a whole system o f sensors and night scopes," said James. "This fence was constructed largely to appease politicians. Huge sectors of the American economy are based on cheap non-union labour - the greasy, sweaty jobs that no one wants. Nearly seven million people who don't have papers work in the U. S. You get 12 tries to get into the United States. It's no wonder people try to leave each day. The unions in Mexico are totally corrupt; women are exploited; it's treatment from another century." The 32 photographs in Running Fence are displayed in order from west to east, from the ocean into the foothills, and contain very few people. At one spot the sequence is broken to illustrate the intense industrial development o f this zone. The gaze is toward the United States with the viewer experiencing bein£ "in" Tijua na. Ironically the park on the American side of the fence where it meets the ocean is called Friendship Park. "I like photographs where the per son taking the picture is grounded. I generally tend to use a fairly wideangle lens. On this project I wanted to put people in two places - one being there in the photo and one of a surveil lance position," James said. "I wanted to show what it is like to be an immi grant, but also what it's like to be a bor der control agent." James achieves this dual effect in some photographs by taking them from a distance, using a longer lens. This enables him to capture much informa tion and give the photos a surveillance feel. O ther photographs m ake the viewer aware o f the immediate sur roundings, or as James put it "you can smell the urine." This exhibit illustrates the divided world that exists around this border crossing through subject matter, pointof-view and technical approach. "I'm trying to make clear pictures. I hope they have visual intelligence" James said. "I like to look at pho tographs from other periods that speak to us now. I'm interested in an investi gation of history. This exhibit is an economic landscape." (See 'Photographs' on page 29) Geoffrey James talks about some o f his photographs in the exhibition Running Fence, which con tinues at Oakville G alleries' Centennial location (120 Navy S t ) until Dec. 5th. s ry 7i Oakville c CHAM PS AGAIN ^ O akville B ea v er > & ., A `.c.w<xvl rv Y S a«»J8g 7· H ashish seized in police raid ···and SAVE Transport Agency o firm to lessen noise inaiely S6.000 TW o pcofte »cre M ichael Dueck. 33. »» chn»od Aid flows in to family displaced by house fire O AKVtAEBEAM* STA IT ·y How «rt $ ll-m illion Town Hall expansion approved ·yHowdUosai aucYioEB&Mssurr the newsstand price, when you prepay! The Oakville Beaver publishes 3 times weekly, every W ednesday, Friday & W eekend. To enjoy home delivery please call our Circulation department at i» clrthcs.*" lc uvl *31* fealty OTMH em ergency room changes com m g SUX-W-TO-nffiKArt* E ast end hom e a total loss follow ing blaze ^ S x S S tS . 845-9742 fa , fee at afu^met. -» T-- ^ ........ 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