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VIDEO ARTWORK

Nicole Antebi’s 100 Partially Obscured Views/100 Vistas Parcialmente Oscurecidas (2019) traces colonial treaties, policies, and personal history to examine how borderlands shape the dehumanizing treatment of refugees. Using vintage postcards as both historical records and open letters, she explores perspectives on border construction and monumentality. Inspired by Gloria Anzaldúa’s concept of Nepantla, Antebi likens animation’s in-between frames to the liminal nature of borders. The film, composed of transitions, features collaboration exclusively with people from the borderlands region. In collecting postcards, Antebi discovered that her friend’s grandfather, Roberto López Díaz, was the most prominent postcard maker in Juárez and Chihuahua. The work underscores how El Paso and Juárez share history, people, and gaze, while their division is imposed by imperialist obstructions.

Bio

Nicole Antebi is an animator and moving image maker. Her interest in animation grew out of a desire to expand her storytelling tools—specifically in exploring place-based animism and how vastly different cultures and religions imbue place with personhood, sympathetic magic, or animistic qualities, forming a foundation of knowledge and belief systems or, in times of crisis, a desperate incantation of hope. Aware of the inequities facing Mexicans, Mexican Americans, and Fronteriza/o/xs residing in the borderlands of El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez—the region where she came of age—she has witnessed the growing divide between the two cities. Once united by a shared name and community, they have become increasingly divided by federal policies that obstruct the movement of people, culture, and the river. Antebi is an assistant professor of Illustration and Animation at the University of Arizona and has previously taught at CUNY Queens College, SUNY Albany, and Universidad de las Américas Puebla.