"Breaking Apart" is a set of ceramic plates, designed for a poster. The work is a contemplation on the issue of how conflicts at the Mexican-American border are affecting the people of both countries and future generation's perceptions in negative ways. Rather than speak about the human violence and public policies of governance, I wanted to shed light on the lesser, but possibly far more impacting, discussed issue of biodiversity.
The issue of Mexican migration and the expansion of Monsanto’s genetically modified (GMO) corn strain is killing the brilliant native Mexican maize species and millennia of Maize culture and heritage that exists in the border region. In the near future, Monsanto’s GMO corn will be the only kind left and the biodiversity of the border area and much of the North American landscape will be greatly diminished. With this piece, I wanted people to consider how the heritage of the Mexican people was disappearing alongside native Mexican maize biodiversity. The United States government and the border patrols are using Latin Americans as a scapegoat for all of its issues, real or perceived, in the region; the border is a case study on how cognitive dissonance becomes institutionalized and is reinterpreted as fact and reality. The difference in our appearance is the result of only 0.1% variation in genetic code. This has been used as a justification for all manners of discriminations and atrocities. Today we can hardly avoid GMO corns; today discrimination continues; today we have to know about this crucial reality in the border and today we need to do something to prevent further disaster.
The four plates have a chronological order, from a whole plate, representing the healthy continent, to a totally broken plate, representing the land, people, heritage/culture, and ecosystem that is destroyed by the current Mexican-American Border. At the same time, genetically modified corn is replacing all the other brilliant native Mexican species. In the first plate, I have 59 native Mexican species' name engraved on the plate by letterpress, in the second plate, there are fewer species left, and on the American side of the plate, I have "I am only 0.1% different from you", which refers to racism and mistreatment happening around the border and to Mexican people. In the third plate, I have a few native Mexican corn species left, and on the American side I wrote "Yellow, White, Monsanto." On the last plate, I have "And then there is only Monsanto" because one day all the other species will become extinct.
