This project is the result of a collaborative practice between photographer Richard Misrach and composer and performer Guillermo Galindo. Since 2004, Misrach has been documenting the 2,000-mile US–Mexico border, with intensified attention from 2009 onward, as part of his ongoing Desert Cantos series—a long-term investigation into landscape and the complex human conditions it contains.

Working from materials gathered along the border—water bottles, clothing, backpacks, spent shotgun shells, ladders, sections of the border wall and other remnants of migration—Galindo transforms these objects into sound-producing instruments. In parallel, he develops graphic scores that often originate from Misrach’s photographs, extending the images into performative and sonic dimensions.

The project operates at the intersection of documentation and transformation, where found objects become instruments and photographs become structures for interpretation. The publication brings together multiple suites of images made with both large-format cameras and mobile devices, alongside a collection of sculptural instruments, score designs and references to recorded performances.

Across these elements, the work constructs a layered reflection on border space as both a physical and symbolic territory, shaped by movement, control, memory and loss.