Crossing borders, breaking barriers.

• Author: Ogle, Kathy A.
• Position: Exhibitions

ROMPIENDO FRONTERAS is the first international exhibition of digital art and photography to grow out of the government of El Salvador's response to the ideas of Salvadoran artists living outside the country. Inviting and inspiring Salvadorans who live abroad to use the art of photography to express themselves, the show breaks through barriers and goes beyond real, geographic, imaginary, cultural, national, and international boundaries.

The works are highly creative and display all the magic, fantasy, memory, and imagination of Salvadoran culture, which is typically characterized by the stoicism and determination of a people who clearly possess a mix of the dreamer-adventurer spirit of the Iberian conquistadors and the courage of their indigenous ancestors.

Various themes are expressed in the exhibition's ninety-two photographs and digital artworks, but all of them employ the immigrant artist's point of view. Reflected here are the experiences and challenges that each of them has faced, and still faces, outside of El Salvador.

It's interesting to see how each of the artists--thirty-four in all--related to the theme of the show. Nicolas Shi, who lives in Washington, D.C., says, "As an artist, my reality is influenced by my Chinese heritage, my Salvadoran growing up, and my new American life, which breaks barriers, not only geographical borders but cultural and imaginary ones." His art shows another side of the immigrant--not the worker who sustains the economy of his country by sending...