MEXICO: University Professors Photos Draw the Wrath of Border Industrialists
Exhibit Taken Down After Maquila Execs Protest
A maquiladora worker wearing a Halloween mask to hide his face for fear of reprisal from the company. Credit: Fred Lonidier |
Photo of maquiladora worker from cancelled exhibit. Credit: Fred Lonidier |
Administrators from the Autonomous University of Baja California readily admitted to that they caved in to pressure from manufacturers. Lonidier said he received an e-mail from a university official the day after he passed out the invitations that read, "Our obligation is to promote art with in the university and not to promote public points of view. Yesterday, we had a meeting with some members of the industrial community and they informed us that you or people who work for you have been delivering publicity not only about your exposition but about politics."
"The leaflet brought the show down," Lonidier said from his UCSD studio. "If I hadn't leafleted they would have kept it up." Meanwhile, he says artists, intellectuals and activists on both sides of the border are worked up over what they see as censorship.
The Autonomous University of Baja California, the largest public university in Tijuana, sits near the Otay Mesa, where the city's largest industrial park housing hundreds of maquiladoras lies. This was the first exhibit in Mexico for Lonidier, who has spent the last 25 years doing photo-text installations on labor themes.
- 104 Globalization
- 116 Human Rights
- 184 Labor
- 204 Manufacturing