Ever wonder what it’s really like to be an immigrant on the border? What about what it’s like to be a Minuteman? The creators of The Border Film Project, a photography project like none other I’ve seen, goes beyond the images we see in mainstream media to let the two groups tell their stories in photos. I wish I would have thought of this:

We are three friends – a Rhodes Scholar, filmmaker, and a Wall Street analyst – who spent three months on the U.S. Mexico border filming and distributing hundreds of disposable cameras to two groups on different sides of the line: undocumented migrants crossing the desert and Minutemen volunteers trying to stop them.

The project looks to portray the reality of the border and it does a great job at that. The immigrant photos are a mixed bag of strikingly “normal” everyday photos — some even showing happiness — to shocking and disturbing. They tend to photograph things around them; snakes, plants, their homes, while the Minutemen take more pictures of themselves and their activities, such as target practice and manning a radio.

While the project may aspire to show no political bias (the creators state: “Both groups believe that U.S. border policy has failed by allowing hundreds of thousands of migrants to cross the desert each year, and both have taken it upon themselves as U.S. citizens to rectify the situation”) it is still political. One can’t help but be moved by the photos one way or another; they are challenging, and challenging art is always political.

I, personally, found myself challenged by the idea of presenting the Minutemen’s point of view because of my automatic bias against them. The presence of their photos, however, completes this project. Some who view the photos of the people “protecting our borders” will be moved to feel sympathy; for me, the juxtaposition of the immigrant photos with those of the Minutemen just made me feel more disgust for that they are doing, and particularly how they are doing it.

Whatever the feelings conjured up, this is an important project, and one that will hopefully help open people’s minds to the reality that is the border and the humanity that dwells there.

Via / The Latin Americanist

Photo via The Border Film Project