Desire Lines, Baboquivari Peak, AZ

Delilah Montoya, Desire Lines, Baboquivari Peak, AZ, 2004, printed 2008, inkjet print, image: 12 ³⁄₄ x 47 ¹⁄₂ in. (32.4 x 120.7 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Gilberto Cardenas Latino Art Collection, 2011.52.1, © 2004, Delilah Montoya

Artwork Details

Title: Desire Lines, Baboquivari Peak, AZ
Artist: Delilah Montoya
Date: 2004, printed 2008
Location: Not on view
Dimensions: image: 12 ³⁄₄ x 47 ¹⁄₂ in. (32.4 x 120.7 cm)
Copyright: © 2004, Delilah Montoya
Credit Line: Gift of the Gilberto Cardenas Latino Art Collection
Mediums Description: inkjet print
Classifications: Photography
Photoprint
Subjects: Landscape — desert
Landscape — Arizona
Landscape — mountain — Baboquivari Peak
Object Number: 2011.52.1
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/2011.52.1

Artwork Description

Delilah Montoya's work focuses on the rich and complex histories of the landscape and communities of the borderlands between Mexico and the United States. Desire Lines: Baboquivari Peak, AZ shows the Tohono O'odham Reservation, which straddles the border of Arizona and the Sonora region of Mexico. The mountains seen in the distance are the site of the Tohono O'odham creation story. In having to travel between these regions, the people of the O'odham community become both migrants and natives within their own ancestral homeland. Scattered throughout the landscape are water jugs, placed along the reservation border to provide water to migrants on their journey. Montoya explicitly rejects the doctrine of Manifest Destiny and the misconception that these lands were unexplored terrain prior to the invasion of white settlers and the creation of borders between two nations.

Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea, 2023

Works by this artist (7 items)

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Humane Borders Water Station

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Delilah Montoya

Date2004, printed 2008

inkjet print

Teyolia

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Delilah Montoya

Date1993

collotype

El Grito de la Gitana

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Delilah Montoya

Date1993

collotype

Los Jovenes

Artist

Delilah Montoya

Date1993

collotype

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This audio podcast series discusses artworks and themes in the exhibition Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In this episode, artist Delilah Montoya talks about her photographs Humane Borders and Desire Lines.

DELILAH MONTOYA: Hello, my name is Delilah Montoya, and the work that you’re looking at comes from a series called “Sed: Trail of Thirst.” It was done in 2004 for FotoFest in Houston, Texas, and the theme that year was on water, and I decided, with the help of Orlando Lara, to talk about the lack of water or the lack of nutrition. We were looking at that point at the US-Mexican border and decided to go towards a point where there was the most deaths, very heavy trafficking, that was going on.

Orlando Lara, who at that point, was at Stanford University had been researching the O’odham Tohono Reservation because, in his estimation, and as he pointed out to me, it’s a metaphor. It’s a metaphor for Chicano and Mexican immigrants, or Latino immigrants in general. Basically, because on that reservation, the tribe got split. Half of the tribe is Mexican nationalists, and the other half of that tribe are US citizens. So, the condition that it set up was the border that was created was a very porous border. The tribe was able to go back and forth between Mexico and the United States.

Actually, that was the metaphor that we were looking at, however what does happen because it is so deadly is that there are a lot of migrations going across that reservation, but we see it because the Migras isn’t there, they can’t, because it is a sovereign nation, and the Native Americans do not want to have federal agencies on their land. It becomes a corridor for the migrations of Latino people coming through, but it’s deadly in that most of the people coming through are from more tropical areas, they’re from large cities, and they don’t understand how dangerous a desert is, and with the lack of water, anywhere from 200-300 bodies are found on that reservation annually.

So, what we wanted to do was look at the trail, but what I decided was more important was that the trail be emptied. It had a lot to do with this idea that Amalia Mesa-Bains gave me, and the way that so much of the history is recorded in the land. The land holds the history of a people, and so as I looked out on that migration trail, you can see the scarring, right? Of the passing of people. So, even though that they’re not there, their kind of aura or the evidence of their passing is there, and so that’s one of the reasons why you see that kind of vacancy in terms of the landscape.

The first one is “Humane Borders Water Station,” and that water station that you see comes from a humanitarian group that was able to put these water tanks outside of Baboquivari Peak. The peak becomes a marker between the reservation and US territory. Because the humanitarian efforts can’t happen inside of the reservation, because the Native Americans don’t necessarily want the Migra there, they don’t necessarily want to encourage migrants to come through that corridor either, so what you find is that they won’t let humanitarian efforts happen inside that land as well, so you, what you see is you see the humanitarian efforts happening right outside of where Baboquivari is.

“Humane Borders” made a pact with the immigration, with the Migra, that they couldn’t patrol around the water stations. What you see is Mike Wilson, and Mike Wilson is a humanitarian, but also he’s a member of the tribe, and so what he’s doing is physically putting water out on the reservation, and there’s controversy about what he’s doing, but since he’s a member of the tribe, he can put the water out, and so what we see on the left-hand side of the picture is Mike Wilson with his wheelbarrow of water, kind of walking out of the frame.

Related Books

Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art

Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art explores how Latino artists shaped the artistic movements of their day and recalibrated key themes in American art and culture. This beautifully illustrated volume presents the rich and varied contributions of Latino artists in the United States since the mid-twentieth century, when the concept of a collective Latino identity began to emerge. Our America includes works by artists who participated in all the various artistic styles and movements, including abstract expressionism; activist, conceptual, and performance art; and classic American genres such as landscape, portraiture, and scenes of everyday life.

Exhibitions

Media - 2011.12 - SAAM-2011.12_1 - 77591

Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art

October 25, 2013–March 2, 2014

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art presents the rich and varied contributions of Latino artists in the United States since the mid-twentieth century, when the concept of a collective Latino identity began to emerge.