‘Conscientious Projector: Photographs by Maria Teresa Fernandez’ - The Armory Center for the Arts at Pasadena exhibition focuses on the U.S.-Mexico border fence.

In an upstairs hallway at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, a small show of photographs by Maria Teresa Fernandez focuses on the fence along the U.S.-Mexico border that begins a couple of hundred feet out in the Pacific and ends about 60 miles inland, near El Centro, Calif.

That’s a lot of territory to cover, and rather than documenting all parts equally or presenting a historical overview of the politically charged barrier, Fernandez zeros in on details: little incidents that might seem insignificant but that accumulate to form a knot of narratives by turns tragic, defiant and touching. Of the 84 color prints that make up the accessible exhibition, all but eight are close-ups — tightly framed pictures that bring visitors nose to nose with the fence and arm’s length from the often poignant mementos left beside it by people whose lives it has affected.”*

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