The Border Crossed Us was a temporary public art installation at UMass Amherst to re-stage the US-Mexico border fence on the Tohono O’odham reservation. Commissioned by the University Museum of Contemporary Art, the installation was conceived and executed by the Institute for Infinitely Small Things.

This book uses a variety of graphics to relate both the physical site at UMass Amherst, as well as the broader historical and political background of the project.

The Tohono O’odham are an indigenous tribe who have inhabited areas of present-day US and Mexico long before the existence of either nation. In 2006, as a result of the Bush Administration’s Secure Fence Act, a 75-mile vehicle barrier was erected that physically sunders O’odham communities, disrupts ceremonial paths, desecrates sacred burial grounds, and prevents tribe members from receiving critical health services.

The installation was essentially a giant photographic reproduction of this vehicle border, placed through the campus of UMass Amherst. It included a sound component, as well as a tour given by a member of the Tohono O’odham Nation.