In thinking about the intersects between art and culture, I remembered one of the most powerful images from a border mobilization I attended along the Sonora-Arizona border. Every year there is a weekend-long event that takes place on the Mexican side of the border to protest the wall, immigration policies, human rights and environmental law violations, etc. In addition to feeling validated and inspired by a large group of people who share my political views, the most touching part of the weekend for me was to take part in writing the names and ages of those who had lost their lives trying to cross the border in the year since the last mobilization on small white crosses and mounting the crosses on the wall. To see hundreds upon hundreds of crosses hanging along the wall contextualizes the human impact of the United States' relationship to its Latin American neighbors. I had a very similar experience when I saw a travelling exhibit of soldiers boots lined up on the UA mall (symbolizing the soldiers that died in the Iraq War). Because I felt more emotionally connected to the issue after being able to see a visual representation of the lives lost in both these instances, I know that visual images are a necessary part of any political movement because we need a break from the rhetoric so that we don't become desensitized to it, and because we are creatures who respond to the aesthetics of any argument.
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