Boundaries

Boundaries is a collaborative project between poet Richard Blanco and contemporary landscape photographer Jacob Bond Hessler that investigates the visible and invisible boundaries of race, gender, class, and ethnicity, among many others. By bringing together their poetry and photography, the artists challenge the physical, imagined, and psychological dividing lines—both historic and current—that shadow America and perpetuate an us vs. them mindset by inciting irrational fears, hate, and prejudice.

Richard Blanco is the fifth presidential inaugural poet in U.S. history—the youngest, first Latino, immigrant, and gay person to serve in such a role. Born in Madrid to Cuban exiled parents and raised in Miami, the negotiation of cultural identity and place characterize his body of work. In 2015, the Academy of American Poets named him its first Education Ambassador. Maine-based photographer Jacob Hessler’s work has explored rising seas, industrialized farming, invasive species, extinction, and together with the influential language of Blanco, here his photographs captured from cross-country journeys are charged in their exploration of boundaries and borders.

The twelve poems and photographs are introduced by Mexican American journalist and author Jorge Gilberto Ramos Ávalos who reflects on the enduring value of art that speaks truth to power and the disparity in political moments between meeting Blanco at Barack Obama’s first inauguration in 2009 and the publication date of the book.

The book’s design further draws the reader into concepts of boundaries and borders: each leaf includes an unfurling and shape shifting printed borderline that pulls the reader from photograph to poetry and invites the continued turning of pages. Typographically, Hessler Creative selected architecturally inspired Gotham (2000) and the transitional Baskerville (1757) a combination that offers a meditation on contemporary and historic spaces.

The presswork was done by Puritan Press in New Hampshire, a firm committed to high quality digital and offset printing, founded in 1976 to serve the needs of New England’s academic institutions.