Nilufar Karimi and Eliseo Ortiz on the Collaborative Process

Our collaboration was born out of a shared interest in investigating the language and symbolism nations use to enforce violence on their populations. We approach this by bringing together two different perspectives: visual art and poetry. 

For the pieces appearing in this issue of Poetry, we wanted to explore the role of language in the construction of borderlines, while also highlighting the material, felt consequences of border-making. We were also interested in approaching the drawing of borderlines in the present tense, removing them from a “historical” context, as a moment which has passed. The borderlines we include in our work were all constructed or fortified within the last twenty years. It was important for us to address and visualize their contemporaneity, their daily impact on how we see, discuss, and move through land.

In presenting this work as both poetry and an open source font available here, we encourage others to respond to borders.