ULTRAVIOLE(N)T EXPOSURES is an ongoing, multi-year project assembling experts in architecture, urban planning, environmental and spatial justice, in collaboration with border historians and community members. The project collaboratively constructs the shared, untold, and unseen histories and trajectories of ultraviolet exposure conditions in vulnerable borderland communities through exhibitions, public programming, and an archival website.

Exposure to elevated and increasing levels of ultraviolet radiation poses a hidden threat to large and growing urban populations in the U.S.–Mexico borderlands. Damaging UVB rays are scattered deep even within shaded areas, exposing occupants of public shade with high levels of harmful radiation. Inequitable distribution of public shade amenities in the borderland contributes to asymmetric health impacts and subject borderland populations to a form of “slow violence.” The project seeks to reveal social, cultural, and spatial impacts of the many “ultraviole(n)t exposures” in the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez binational metroplex.

This pilot exhibit presents oral histories, spatial histories, photography, web, and video content describing conditions of ultraviolet radiation exposure in the border region, with a particular focus in Segundo Barrio. Display elements serve as prototypes for a developing design research project, which will culminate in the construction and programming of a traveling exhibit in future phases.

Ultraviole(n)t Exposures is organized by Ersela Kripa and Stephen Mueller, professors and directors of POST (Project for Operative Spatial Technologies) at Texas Tech Huckabee College of Architecture–El Paso, with Dr. Yolanda Leyva, professor and director of the Institute of Oral History at the University of Texas at El Paso History Department.

Sponsored by Mellon Foundation

Image Courtesy of Ingrid Leyva

Image Courtesy of Victor Mask Casas

Image Courtesy of POST–Project for Operative Spatial Technologies