In two new exhibitions, artists are using their work to shine a light on issues of immigration and combat stereotypes on the rise in America

As the Mexican border wall continues to be the crux of a heated debate, the topic is now the focus of two concurring exhibitions at the Museum of Art and Design in New York City, which looks at immigration through the eyes of more than 50 artists.

Craft & Care is a solo exhibition of Los Angeles-based Mexican artist Tanya Aguiñiga who has crossed the border more than 50 times. The artist showcases artwork she has made through her initiative Art Made Between Opposite Sides (Ambos), such as Performance Crafting, a community-driven project made with locals from both sides of the border. On view until 2 October, the artist uses the accessible nature of craft to engage people to think about border issues.

Should Donald Trump's border wall prototypes be considered art? Read more

“It’s not just the reductive rhetoric we’ve seen on TV, it’s about connecting to personal stories, thinking about mothers, families and children being separated,” said the curator, Shannon R Stratton. “That’s the important story we’re trying to tell.”

For one art project, Aguiñiga and a group of volunteers visited the border to ask commuters to fill out a postcard, which asked: “What are your thoughts when you cross this border?” The responses ranged from anger to fear, boredom to thankfulness. More than 6,000 postcards have been collected and 96 are on view in the exhibition.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tanya Aguiñiga’s exhibit includes a staircase with questions asked to border-crossers. Photograph: Photo by Jenna Bascom. Courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design.

Aguiñiga has taken a staircase in the exhibition to feature a list of questions authorities ask border-crossers at the entry point to the US, which range from “Has anyone in your family been convicted of a crime?” to “Do you fear for your life going back to your home country?”

“Her own personal experience with border emotions is brought into the work,” said Stratton. “It taps into what the border means to the US and Mexico; it’s a shared liminal space, it’s not just how its framed as an immigration issue in the US.”

Alongside the Aguiñiga exhibitionis La Frontera: Encounters Along the Border, which features 62 works of art by 48 artists from Mexico, Latin America and beyond, who look at the border through the world of jewelry, and runs until 23 September.

La Frontera, which translates into “the border” in Spanish, looks at the stereotypes surrounding the complications of crossing the US-Mexican border - the most frequently-crossed one in the world. Artists respond to this with jewelry pieces that tap into the more personal side of things.

“In 2016, Trump was already talking about building a wall and people were aware of atrocities at the border, but there are real human stories beyond the violence and drugs,” said the exhibition curator Barbara Gifford. “At a time when the personal has become lost in the political, this exhibition reminds us of our shared humanity.”

Among the jewelry pieces on view is No-Man’s Land, a brooch by Scottish designer Judy McCaig, who uses rusted steel and silver to reference the dangerous mountain climb migrants make to cross the border.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest La Frontera: Encounters Along the Border features Julia Turner’s Three Days Walking (Mourning Brooch). Photograph: Photo: the artist, courtesy of Velvet da Vinci

There is also Three Days Walking (Mourning Brooch), a pin by San Francisco designer Julia Turner, which is based on border crossing warning maps, each of which have red dots representing where people have died while making their pilgrimage.

Mexican designer Raquel Bessudo shows her La Bestia necklace, which is in reference to the cargo trains that immigrants jump on to enter the US. “It’s one way men, women and children head north, by getting on top of trains – it’s a very dangerous act,” said Gifford. “It can take months for them to cross the border and the artist’s piece is commemorative of that, it represents a way out to people.”

“The fact that people would put themselves in this danger tells you the type of danger they’re trying to escape,” she adds.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mabel Peña’s work El Cruce II and Kevin Hughes’ Untitled piece are featured in the La Frontera exhibit. Photograph: Photo by Jenna Bascom. Courtesy The Museum of Arts and Design.

Providence-based designer Kevin Hughes shows a necklace made from recycled water jug handles that aid workers have left along the border – one of which is painted in the colors of the Mexican flag. “He was struck by these good Samaritan acts where people put out jugs of water for others making the journey through the desert,” said Gifford. “Authorities, if they catch you, make you slash the jugs and empty the water; the artist sees it as a symbol of somebody’s life, the jug as the icon of the migrant.”

Some of the other jewelry pieces use the design of the border wall for rings, while others feature graves of migrants who died trying to cross the border. “Artists are talking about stories that touch them personally,” said Gifford. “This exhibition is trying to say ‘these are people just like us, they’re going through experiences they’re trying to save themselves and their families from; they’re reaching out for better possibilities for themselves.’”