The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

Today’s featured artist:  Stefan Falke

LA FRONTERA: Artists along the US Mexican Border

A personal long-term project by Stefan Falke

I photographed over 200 artists and art supporters on both sides along the entire 2000 miles long divide to show the vibrant cultural side of a region that is usually portrayed by the international media with the sole focus on violent crime. The high security steel fence erected by the US over most of the 2000 miles long border did its part to create a physiological and physical barrier. This had particular significance to me ever since I moved to New York – probably because I am German and because I have lived with a wall dividing Berlin and my country until 1989. Artists are the pulse of a society, and I believe if we ignore the cultural side of troubled places, we will soon stop caring about them all together. I met with both internationally renowned as well as only locally known artists. It was not about the value of their art in the eyes of the art market, but about the value and positive impact of the often highly visible creations and activities on their communities.

A book about the project was published in Germany. The project has been featured by major publications: BBC, The New York Times, Wired Huffington Post and Hyperallergic. The work had solo exhibitions in museums, galleries and photo festivals in the US, Mexico and Germany.

Photographer Tochiro Gallegos on the roof of his studio in Reynosa, Mexico. His strong personal work reflects the violent circumstances in border cities like Reynosa.
US Mexico Border in Tijuana.
Border activist and poet Daniel Watman at the border fence in Playas de Tijuana.
Photographer Raechel Running at the border fence near Aqua Prieta, Mexico.
Native American master watercolor artist and muralist Michael Chiago in front of his mural in Sells on the Tohono O’odham reservation in Arizona, near the US-Mexico border, in March 2017. The territory of the Tohono O’odham Nation reaches into Mexico and is divided by the border fence.
Musician Carlos Velazquez, a member of the punk band Tripa Revancha in Nogales, Mexico. The band usually wears suits and wrestling masks on stage.
Cantamo, Reggae and Ska band, at the border fence in Tijuana.
For over 5 years now, once every week, Alvaro Enciso has quietly gone out into the Sonoran Desert, placing a cross in each place where the remains of migrants who died in the desert after illegally crossing the border into Arizona were found by the border patrol. The County’s Medical Examiner provides him and his volunteers (members of the Tucson Samaritans) with updated maps that lists the exact location of nearly 3,000 human remains, found in the Arizona desert since 2001. The number is continuously growing; the crosses he and his team placed during my visit were for two of this years casualties. Alvaro has placed over 800 crosses alread, his project, titled Donde Mueren Los Suenos / Where Dreams Die, is ongoing.
Artists Alfredo ‘Libre’ Gutierrez at his studio in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico.
The young artist Alfredo Gutierrez portraits American homeless people who come to Tijuana because life in the street is cheaper here than in neighboring California. Alfredo ‘Libre’ Gutierrez is well known for his murals in Tijuana and other Mexican cities.

To see more of this project, click here

See more at my project’s website borderartists.com

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APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world.  She has been involved in the photography and illustration advertising and in-house corporate industry for decades.  After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999.  Follow her on Instagram

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