Creativity and Cultures in the Borderlands

Illustration: Dror Cohen for Mellon Foundation

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Mellon Foundation President Elizabeth Alexander led a discussion with guests whose mission-driven work connects us to the Borderlands.

It is precisely in the act of collective sowing that we find acts of hope and transformation.

Shown here, the event “Ludoteca Cervantina”—in collaboration with Colectivo De.siertos Andantes, Luis Miguel Pérez from Disguised Education, and the Tendedero de Historias Reading Room with Araceli Hidalgo—gathered residents to play board games and occupy Plaza Cervantina. Photo courtesy of Edificio de los Sueños

A group of people sit and stand around a table covered in a white cloth outside on a sidewalk along a graffiti covered wall

A Home for Dreaming in Ciudad Juárez

If no one’s putting you into a show, put yourself into a show... You have agency, you have power, you have the opportunity.

Selections from “Land of Milk & Honey”

“Red Flag/Bandera Roja,” 2013, by Veronica Duarte. Photo courtesy of MexiCali Biennial by Ed Gomez

An extra long Mexican flag hanging from a holder on a white wall inside of a gallery space

A Moveable Feast That’s Transforming Boundaries 

[Our grantees] are reclaiming lands, cultures, and languages. And they’re imagining and enacting “unbordered” ways of being that have relevance beyond the border region.

[The border region] is also an actual place, where people have deep cultural histories rooted in a land that was once boundless.

Casandra Hernandez Faham is a program associate for Mellon’s Arts and Culture grantmaking area.

Headshot of Casandra Hernandez Faham

Arts and Culture

Program Associate

Casandra Hernández Faham

Program Associate Casandra Hernandez Faham reflects on the rationale for Mellon’s newest initiative that supports arts and culture work in the borderlands region of the US and Mexico.

The Mellon Initiative That’s Supporting Artists and Cultural Leaders Who Are Imagining “Unbordered” Ways of Being

A low rectangular building with a window sits in front of a deep blue painted wall with a door and security camera on it

Building Borderland Resources with Each Other in Mind

How can we create Native stewardship of these important lands so they are back in the appropriate hands?

The protected Cementerio Del Barrio de los Lipanes. Video: MASS Architects courtesy of Big Bend Conservation Alliance

An aerial view of Cementerio Del Barrio de los Lipanes

In Far West Texas, a Sacred Burial Site is Reclaimed Through Partnership and Perseverance

We’re helping to cultivate the next generation of people who are interested in Borderlands Shakespeare.

Kinan Valdez as El Bravo in Herbert Siguenza’s “El Henry,” a Chicano futuristic adaptation of “Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1,” which will be published in Volume 3 of “The Bard in the Borderlands.” Photo: Jim Carmody

A performer on a stage dressed in urban clothes and football pads in front of a wall covered in graffiti 

Recasting Shakespeare for a New Generation of Students and Audiences

Birds of the borderlands tell serious, silly, and sometimes downright scary stories of the people and land.

A multicolored collage with birds and media albums scattered throughout

Borderlands Stories, as Told by the Birds

If we connect more truthfully with the past, we can chart a new course moving forward.

A Look Into the Exploration of Disavowed Border Histories

Personal testimonies offer important reminders that racial violence does not only impact the targets of that violence, it expands to encompass entire societies.

Monica Muñoz Martinez is an award-winning author, teacher, and public historian, and a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow (MMUF). Photo courtesy of John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

Monica Muñoz Martinez

In an interview from 2018, associate professor and MMUF alumna Monica Muñoz Martinez shares insights from her book The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas

Associate Professor

Monica Muñoz Martinez

From the Mellon Archive: Monica Muñoz Martinez Uncovers America’s History at the Border 

The US-Mexico borderlands are home to an abundance of cultures and creative traditions, yet remain a region minimally funded by arts philanthropies in the United States.

“Liquid Light,” 2022, by Camilo Ontiveros and Javier Tapia. Photo courtesy of MexiCali Biennial by Camilo Ontiveros

Two people stand in a room that is darkened but illuminated by a screen that shows a barren landscape

Through the Frontera Culture Fund, a $25 million commitment announced in 2024, Mellon aims to amplify the voices of artists and cultural leaders who continue to shape the borderlands.

Frontera Culture Fund

See grants that are related to Borderlands Cultures

Photo: Camila Falquez for Mellon Foundation 

An aerial view of a major highway running parallel to a large border wall set on a hilly landscape

Borderlands Cultures

Photo: Camila Falquez for Mellon Foundation

In portrait orientation, an aerial view of a major highway running parallel to a large border wall set on a hilly landscape

Artists as Catalysts

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Beyond Incarceration

A side profile of a Black poet who is wearing glasses and a hat with a feather hat pin.

Civic Engagement

A man in a brown jacket stands in front of blue bulletin board that is covered with papers and advertisements  

Evolving Higher Education

A vertical image of an Indigenous person who is sitting on a chair in front of a backdrop.

Expanding Public Knowledge

An interior room filled with audio and video equipment 

Monuments and Memory

A multicolored painted totem pole set in front of a foggy forest landscape

Multivocality

Five people stand together in a group photo. They are laughing and smiling.

Power of the Word

Five colorful neon signs hang on the wall with messages that include, "Freedom cannot wait," "Brown owned," and "America is for Dreamers."

Public Places‚ Public Stories

A group of Indigenous Maskoke people stand and sit in the wooden frame of a structure in a woods

Puerto Rico and Its Diaspora

In a vertical image, a black leather vest is adorned with colorful pins across the front of it. Embroidery on the vest reads: "Felícitas "La Prieta" Méndez" 