Walls

Two unfinished walls stand parallel to one another, six inches apart. One structure is made out of kiln-fired adobe brick, the other with wood studs, the two different construction techniques alluding to those traditionally used in Mexico and the United States. An eight-minute video is projected on small rectangular sections of each wall that have been finished with plaster. On the brick structure, the video depicts a day laborer’s workday at a construction site in Rosarito, in Baja California, Mexico; on the wooden structure, the video shows a similar workday in San Diego, California. The workers in both scenarios are Mexican, but the viewer can see significant differences in the techniques and materials used, and above all the dynamics of individual and group interactions in the different contexts.