Jackie Amezquita graduated from ArtCenter's Fine Art department this past spring. Jackie, who entered the US illegally from Guatemala in 2003, finished her experience at ArtCenter with a timely and deeply personal final project: a 178 mile walk from the US/Mexico border in Tijuana to Downtown Los Angeles, completed over eight days and concluding with a symbolic bath in an oil drum.

Jackie's life and work has been shaped by several extraordinary journeys that have called upon her extraordinary stamina, courage, and resilience. While her powerfully symbolic final project received widespread media coverage for offering a rare first-hand perspective on the hardships experienced by undocumented immigrants. The story of her original border walk, at age 17, from her native Guatemala to the United States on foot with a group of strangers, is perhaps even more impressive, inspiring and hauntingly reminiscent of the recent wave of distressing of young immigrants captured and separated from their families at the border.

In her conversation with Change Lab’s Lorne Buchman, Jackie shared the harrowing tales of both of her border journeys, the meaning behind the creative elements of her project and how our bodies become tools for telling stories.

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