BARRIO BUENA VISTA
Elevation: 3,806 ft.
Ecological niche: Residential/Industrial urban environment, Chihuahuan Desert
Ownership: private
Location: Buena Vista barrio in El Paso, TX
JOURNAL ENTRY
Lucy Livingstone
El Paso
October 16, 2009
El Paso has been non-stop and its been difficult to find a moment to write anything. We are working so hard on the collective project, which is going fantastically well, and I’m also trying to make time to do my own stuff. I have a great feeling about working in El Paso, the history of the place is amazing. It was still part of Mexico in 1847. Looking on the map, Juarez still looks like it is the other half of one city, not another city. It’s almost like Berlin was with the East and Western Blocks before the wall came down. I guess my feeling about the US/Mexican border before coming here was that it was something definitive, solid, unquestionable, but here, on the border, in the middle of El Paso, it’s other side severed, it feels arbitrary, imposed, false. This is fascinating, I want to spend longer here to see what this does in terms of the work that I make. I feel like I need to come back here.
Camping up where we are on the Barrio we look down first to the freeway, then over to the mountain and on the side of the mountain are three rail lines. On top of the mountain is Jesus Christ and behind the mountain is Juarez...
