When Donald Trump was elected President of the United States using an election promise to build a new and heavy fortified wall along the USA / Mexico border, myself and artist fellow Bristol resident Duncan McKellar had an idea.

An idea that would take us all the way to the border towns of Douglas, Arizona and Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico in January 2018 to stage an art event unlike any other, using the power of something we all share; wherever we live in the world – the sun. Reflect featured 50 Americans and 50 Mexicans standing together, as one, in a perfectly straight line stretching for one kilometre. Participants wore mirrored masks that in the desert sun flashed a pathway of light across the wall. Two countries, a stunning moment of togetherness and a defiant challenge to those whose aim instead is to divide us, wherever we live, at one of the most iconic and politically toxic dividing lines of them all.

My graphic design background enabled me to create a look for the whole project and I designed the Reflect logo that appeared on each mask using the mathematics symbol for division, rotated to form two eyes and nose. The line in the middle also symbolised the border wall, the dot either side a line participant and a reflection of one another. To finish the project we flew to Washington DC exactly one year after Trump’s inauguration and asked people to write a ‘Postcard to the President’. Before flying back to the UK we posted 175 to the White House. The result was a 30 minute documentary that followed us as they tried to bring the idea to life under the ever watchful eye of US Border Patrol. I edited the film and the trailer (see above) with Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects and the final film was selected by film festivals in the US, Europe and South Africa.

​

See the full documentary here.

​

Graphic design, art direction, branding, motion graphics, video editing