“Living in Limbo: Portraits from the Border,” is an exhibit opening on June 4 by local artist Bill McLaughlin, who visited Tijuana, Mexico taking humanizing portraits of asylum seekers and migrants. (Photo by Bill McLaughlin)

EARLVILLE – Earlville Opera House is pleased to host “Living in Limbo: Portraits from the Border”, an exbibit by local artist Bill McLaughlin who spent time in Tijuana, Mexico making portraits of asylum seekers and migrants that are currently stranded in one of the world’s most dangerous cities.

His goal was to stay in the shelters and get to know the migrants as best as he could and hopefully share their stories through his profound photography. Come witness this larger-than-life photography exhibit opening June 4 from 1 to 3 p.m. in the Arts Café. The exhibit runs through October 22 and gallery visits are always free and open to the public.

 

Bill McLaughlin is a self-taught painter and photographer living and working in Chenango County. His work as a visual artist has mostly expressed itself in his relationship to nature and the land on which he lives, although several years ago while working on a project of monochrome landscape photographs of Central New York, Bill gradually began adding portraits of the people he encountered while exploring locations to photograph.

Bill said, “It was during that time that I once again fell in love with the power of the portrait. The magical give and take between subject and photographer, the frozen moment, the direct gaze of a person caught momentarily off guard and voluntarily vulnerable-it was a harvest from the land I had not anticipated. 

 

“In 2019, as the situation on the southern border worsened and the full scope of the humanitarian crisis became apparent I was dismayed by the photographs I was seeing of the migrants and asylum seekers. They were portrayed as dangerous and desperate, like an enemy, dehumanized.

“Then one day I saw the photograph of Salvadoran Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez and his 23- month-old daughter, Valeria, lying face down in the muddy waters of the Rio Grande, drowned together as they tried to cross to safety. “

 

Still enamored of the power I had found in those portraits made close to home, I resolved to visit the border and attempt to make portraits that would tell a more honest and humanitarian story, to make portraits with dignity and respect. My hope was that bringing these images back from the border and exhibiting them in a large format in our communities would help de-otherize these people who have risked so much and have come so far. If we can see ourselves - our hopes, our dreams, our fears - in them, then this project will have been a success.

 

Meanwhile, they wait. They wait on politicians. They wait on a deadly pandemic. They wait on diminishing resources and yet more charity. They wait while growing extremes of indifference and animosity further endangers them. They wait as their children grow older in shelters. And even now, more than two years since my visit, they wait."

 

Copies of Bill’s original photographs and prints are available for sale as is a book on the exhibit. To help advocate for human rights, immigration reform, social justice with a special focus on issues related to the US/Mexican border, contact: Border Angels at  www.borderangels.com

 

The Earlville Opera House is located at 18 East Main Street in the charming Village of Earlville, NY and is handicap accessible. Vaccine proof required at door, masks worn inside. Please check our website for the latest updates and for further information on our programs and services, and like us on Facebook.

– From the Earlville Opera House