Chico MacMurtrie's robotic border crossers project is a beautiful odyssey. This film follows the border crossers project based on a simple yet quixotic mission: to design, build, deploy, and choreograph a series of public activations by six robotic sculptures, known as Border Crossers, at several locations along the U.S.–Mexico border, with the support of community members, institutions, and young artists on both sides of the border.
MacMurtrie revisits his Mexican-American roots and confronts the human and environmental toll of today’s militarized border in the process of creating the Border Crossers and directing their quest to peacefully transcend and transgress—for a few brief yet beautiful moments at a time—a series of imposing physical barriers.
The Border Crossers’ first public deployment, following countless rehearsals on MacMurtrie’s ranch in Bisbee, occurred in May 2021 at the border of Naco, Sonora, Mexico and Naco, Arizona.