In the fall of 2007, the Hardcore Art Contemporary Space, a politically oriented gallery in the Design District in Miami, Florida held an event called the New Media Exhibition to display non-traditional art forms. Tia presented an installation of a double-sided manipulated photograph with text presenting different sides of immigration policy in the United States surrounded by barbed wire fencing, orange hazard cones and police tape. The focus of the text was the story of Elvira Arellano, an illegal immigrant arrested after having left the sanctuary of a church in Los Angeles where she had taken refuge for a full year to avoid deportation. She had a son who was born in the US and wanted him to be raised there. In the fall of 2007, she was deported back to Mexico, leaving her son behind. This became a divisive issue in the United States, with some claiming that Elvira had a right to raise her son in his home country and that the government had disgraced itself by separating them, while others believed that Elvira had no right to be in the US in the first place and that she should have taken her son with her back to Mexico.

As part of the New Media Exhibition, Tia also designed and constructed a line of jewellery expanding the theme of the purpose and effectiveness of national borders to include references to personal borders. To showcase the jewellery on the opening night of the exhibition, Enid Harum-Alvarez, a professional modern dancer, performed an improvised dance exploring the theme of crossing borders, including a scene depicting a woman running the border and one of a woman being searched at a border crossing. Dani made an impromptu video which he later set to music. One of the pieces was a beautiful  and controversial rendition of the Star Spangled Banner sung in Spanish. The result was a heart-breaking video which was premiered at the Discussion Panel during the exhibition.

Here we show the invitational postcard and some photos from the opening night performance. The video will be available for viewing at our studio.