Closing Reception: Saturday, May 7th, 5-8pm

Fences & Neighbors is a mixed media installation inspired by Janet Goldner’s research trip to Arizona in 2014.  

A woven barbed wire fence divides the gallery. On the far side is a projected video about real and imagined abundance and stories of migrants. Viewers can see the video through the fence without being able to access the other side. On the near side of the fence are photographs of what the migrants left behind - their families, their food, their culture. 

As the fever pitch around migration mounted, Goldner wanted to go see for herself.  Working with the Tucson Arts Brigade and the US Department of Arts and Culture, she spent a week on and around the border. The 30 ft. high fence separating Nogales, Arizona from Nogales, Sonora, made of surplus military steel from the runways in Iraq, was particularly impressive and disturbing.  They say that good fences make good neighbors. But what if our neighbors are fleeing violence and poverty?

Migration is a recurring theme for Goldner. Her large scale public sculpture, Most of Us Are Immigrants was installed in Sara Roosevelt Park in the late 1990’s.  It is now in the collection of the Islip Museum on Long Island.