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Andreas Rutkauskaus's contemporary work on the Canadian – American border entitled Borderline (2016), results from an invitation by the Canadian Photography Institute to develop a project in relation to its archive. The artist's photographic project offers a critical understanding of the border space between the two countries and plays with the constructed ideal of the border as unproblematic, peaceful and natural. Borderline shows a landscape which is affected by technology and where the borderline is extensively, even if imperceptibly, scrutinized through the use of CCTV surveillance cameras, thermal imaging and ground sensors. Rutkauskas offers to re-imagine the dividing line between Canada and the United States. As a transcontinental counterpoint to this rich body of work, I will be looking at the works presented in a recent exhibition organized by the Canadian Photography Institute entitled Frontera: Views of the U.S.- Mexico Border (2018) and in particular, at the 1997Running Fence series by Geoffrey James. This paper examines the visual narratives unfolding at the border and more precisely what they teach us about landscape photography beyond nationalist narratives and representations.
