This article was published in VARIANT magazine vol. 2, number 4, autumn 1997

Electricity was needed to operate an electric saw but there were no power points around, only the wires that ran along the ground at the edge of the dirt road 'pirating' electricity from nearby power lines. To Marc Antonio it was no problem. He located a taped over junction, uncoupled it and attached the wires to the leads for the saw. Water was needed but there were no water pipes, taps or standpipes. A water truck was called and a barrel filled up. There were no paved roads, drains or sewage system. This is Maclovio Rojas, an illegal squatter settlement of almost 1,000 households on a dusty hillside surrounded by treeless hills some seven miles east of the city centre of Tijuana, Mexico. I was spending five weeks working with members of the Border Arts Workshop/Taller Frontera Artes on a project in Maclovio funded by 'IN-SITE' an art biennial. IN-SITE is a bi-national collaborative project of art institutions in Mexico and the USA "focused on artistic investigation and activation of public space in the transnational context of Tijuana/San Diego. The heart of IN-SITE 97 is a probing of places of meeting and interchange in this unique juncture of two cities and two nations...through an exhibition of approximately 40 new works created during residencies in the region by artists (from) throughout the Americas and a sustained rhythm of community engagement programs spearheaded by artists from San Diego and Tijuana." Laurie Anderson was to launch the biennale with a performance entitled 'The Speed of Darkness' and Vito Acconci, David Avalos, Judith Barry, Helen Escobedo and Allan Sekula were among the many other artists making work for it.

Maclovio is not an unusual place for Latin America and settlements like it are a well documented phenomenon. Barrios, favelas and colonias, built of the ubiquitous packing case, wooden pallets and corrugated iron, cluster around many cities as the poor, the unemployed and migrant workers strive to share in the scraps of urban consumer culture. Tijuana, one of the fastest growing Mexican cities and situated hard against the US border, has expanded explosively in the last ten years with numerous squatter settlements eventually becoming regulated suburban areas. Not so Maclovio where the government wants to clear the land so that the vast adjacent Hyundai container plant can expand. The elected leader of the community, Hortensia Mendoza, who has been imprisoned three times on account of her opposition to the government's plans, says: "The only way I leave is dead."

The plight of the people of Maclovio has attracted a lot of support from across the border in San Diego County. Sympathetic organisations, charities, trade unions, (including university and teaching unions), have raised funds and sent teams over to build a school and community centre. The Border Arts Workshop/Talle Frontera Artes (BAW/TAF), has been doing art projects around the biggest political issue in the area, that of the very border itself, since 1984. Every day at the US side of the border-crossing bus-loads of illegal Mexican immigrants can be seen being deported. But they will be back the next day determined to get into the US and some will die in the attempt. In the last ten years several hundred have died. In 1993 the US government decided on a huge increase in the Border Patrol Service and the construction of a border fence. For this they used the redundant metal landing strips from the Gulf War, placed on edge, and concreted into the ground. The fence goes 'Christo-like' right down the beach and into the Pacific Ocean. At this point it becomes a row of six-inch diameter steel columns set apart with just enough space for a child to squeeze through. When I visited it the US side of the beach was deserted apart from the four-wheel-drive vehicles of the Border Patrol and a 'legal' Mexican family picnicking up against the fence with relatives on the other side. On the Mexican side the beach is full of people enjoying the sun and the sea. It is a strange sight. The US is experimenting with new fence constructions with the aim of covering the whole stretch of the border with Mexico.

BAW/TAF has gained international recognition for its work including exhibiting at recent biennales in Venice and Sydney. Last year one of the members Manuel Mancillas came across a reference to Maclovio Rojas on the net. What interested him was that he knew of another place with the same name in another part of Baja California. It had been named after the 24 year-old local leader of the farm workers union who had been killed on a contract allegedly issued by local farm bosses. He and founding member of the BAW/TAF, Michael Schnorr, visited this new Maclovio Rojas and met the leaders of the community. A protest march to Mexicali, the state capital 120 miles away, was to take place and they offered to make a film of it. It was at this point that BAW/TAF decided to commit itself to working long term with the people of Maclovio.