BORDERLINES
KEITH CARTER
“I come from Beaumont, a rural but culturally strong Texas town, filled with gracious and warm-hearted folks. I was at a loss for words when I realized our government was detaining children in the border town of Tornillo. I look forward to meeting local residents who had to endure this intrusion and experiencing the cultural landscape they cherish.”
-Keith Carter
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Remnants left by the protesters outside the Tornillo Detention Camp
where 3800 children were held.
©CASE Art Fund
Seen through the border wall between New Mexico and Ciudad Juarez
© Keith Carter
Borderlines is a photographic project about the detention camps in Tornillo, TX, that housed separated and unaccompanied children. CASE invited renown Texas photographer Keith Carter to contribute to the Borderlines exhibition. While the children held at the detention center in Tornillo were finally sent to family members or other refugee centers, their souls remained. It is this presence that Carter photographed, as well as the New Mexico/ Ciudad Juarez border.
The American artist Keith Carter [b. 1948, Madison, WI] grew up in a small delta town on the Louisiana border raised by his mother who worked as the local portrait photographer. Years later, Carter began his own photographic career in Beaumont, capturing the people and spirituality of the Southern landscape in which he was raised. More than fifty years later, Carter’s photographs have become synonymous with the art of storytelling, memory, and place, always looking for the poetry of the ordinary.