Opinion: Art and activism in San Diego echo Pope Francis’ teaching on borders

Asylum-seekers reach out from the frontier fence near San Diego in May File photo by Chris Stone Times of San Diego The world grieves the loss of Pope Francis as he was buried in Rome on Saturday with President Trump in attendance at his funeral The pontiff often criticized Trump s territory line initiative while advocating on behalf of those displaced by persecution poverty and political violence In response to Trump s rhetoric in Pope Francis visited Ciudad Juarez in Mexico on the U S frontier and noted A person who thinks only about building walls wherever they may be located and not building bridges is not a Christian Sadly more than nine years later the President has not only fortified the perimeter in San Diego but brought the demarcation to university campuses leading to the deportation of students and even exporting prisoners to El Salvador While concrete borders and prisons may seem impenetrable they can be brought down through words or images whether it is the words of the pope or the pen or paint brush or at times with arts that combine both words and images the comic arts and protest art In comics or manga the panel is the frontier that wraps around a single moment or scene containing an illustration that puts forth an idea or moves the story forward through action Essentially comics are defined by borders that let us transcend the borders of our imagination In May the Comic-Con Museum opened the exhibition Perimeter Blitz Artistas del C mic de Tijuana allowing artists to use comics as a means of expressing the limit with Tijuana as a space for creation evolution inspiration and experimentation Not too far from that museum another comic of sorts is the protest art featured in Borderlands Visions Anti-Border Futures Exhibit which opened at the Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park and will be on display until July One drawing there features the words We did NOT cross the borders the borders crossed US Etching by Lerida Armendariz This is Lerida Armendariz s sublime etching of a black margin separating the U S and Mexico The description states It echoes the forced displacement and dehumanization resulting from arbitrary lines on maps lines that disregard the inherent dignity and rights of all The arbitrary lines could easily describe the borders created by the British and French out of the collapsing Ottoman Empire after World War One resulting in the creation of the Lebanon Syria Iraq and Palestine mandates In terms of the Palestine mandate there is an irony as the grandparents of Nayib Bukele the president of El Salvador came from Bethlehem In Pope Francis visited Bethlehem to pray beside the controversial separation wall touching a symbol of division while silently praying for unity Bukele a descendant of the displaced from Bethlehem a city where a displaced couple once witnessed the birth of Jesus now presides over El Salvador s notorious maximum-security prison the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo It holds Kilmar Abrego Garcia a man deported from Maryland without due process Bukele s El Salvador the Savior in Spanish hosts a place not of salvation but damnation At the University of San Diego the Kroc School of Peace Studies is hosting Artivism in the Borderlands a subject on artivism the blending art and activism as a peaceful yet transformative means of addressing social issues at our limit An exhibition of students work will be held at the Kroc IJP Theater and Rotunda on Tuesday April from p m to p m All three events contribute to the frontier gnosis of our local region Gnosis is the ancient Greek concept that is the etymological root of knowledge For example to be agnostic is to be literally without knowledge All three events in San Diego employ visual images to convey a demarcation gnosis And this raises the question of What is a demarcation Borders can be perceived geographically such as the massive metal wall that extends into the Pacific Ocean or by natural landmarks such as a river or military checkpoints Borders can also emerge in our imagination methods of thinking and in the cultural spaces where the differences are addressed They are both physical monstrosities and abstract concepts Artivism confronts the struggles of communities on both sides of a dividing line whether it is the struggle to cross one or the struggles revealed after bridging the demarcation Confronting these images and issues makes one a limit gnostic where you carry knowledge that borders are both physical and mental imagined and biological Ironically Pope Francis had opposed gnostic Christianity an early form of the faith later deemed heretical as the Catholic Church came into being in the th century Yet he was a dividing line gnostic in that he challenged the notion of walls that divide a common humanity Ibrahim Al-Marashi is an associate professor of history at Cal State San Marcos and a visiting scholar at University of San Diego and San Diego State University Artivism in the Borderlands Exhibition at the Kroc School of Peace Studies Rotunda and Theater will take place on Tuesday April