Conceived by Zulma Aguiar in 2005, Turnstyle is an interactive installation that recreates the U.S. / Mexican border culture with stereotypical images of the US and Mexico. The satirical video is influenced by the works of people such as Guillermo Gomez Peña and Coco Fusco. Aguiar admires the sense of humor in comic strip artist Lalo Alcaraz and film producer Alex Rivera.

Turnstyle is a life size border door placed in the center of a gallery. It recreates the U.S. / Mexican border culture in two videos that are played depending on two parameters. First users must physically move the door in order to watch the video play. Second, a different video will play depending on the direction the door is turned: if the border door is turned in one direction the Mexican Border Agent video mostly allows people to enter Mexico; and if the door is rotated in the opposite direction, the U.S. Border agent begins to stop them.

U.S. / Mexican Border stereotypes in the images include stereotypes of so called “America,” borderhacks, Mexican Clowns, Water oasis for crossing immigrants, anti-Minutemen slogans, the lack of Mexican interest in patrolling the border, braseros being DDT’d in their head and genitalia (owned by Smithsonian).

Zulma Aguiar is a video artist, podcasting blogger, interactive installation artist, feminist, border artist, human rights activist and a Chicana from Calexico, California whose expertise lies mainly with video, she learns about misogyny, global conflict, separation, border cultures, diasporas and the love hate relationship between all adjacent societies living near, or around political boundaries. She is living in New York City and working on her thesis there with the help of her committee.

Zulma is currently reworking a Documentary about female genocide also known as femicide. The video is about women who are raped, strangled to death to then be brutally murdered in Ciudad Juarez in the State of Chihuahua, Mexico. Zulma was in Ciudad Juarez Feb. 16-23rd and March 11-19th, 2005.

The video is called “Juarez Mothers Fight Femicide: made for a non-profit called Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa a.c.” May our daughters return home.

She is working with a non-profit NGO called Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa a.c. These women are far from being victims they are now activists and wish to change the cultural fabric of Ciudad Juarez.

At RPI Zulma was the Research Assistant for the Director of the Experimental Media and Performance Art Center (EMPAC), Johannes Goebel. 2004-2005

In San Diego Zulma helped co-found the San Diego Independent Media Center with Professor Emeritus DeeDee Halleck, where Zulma helped cover demonstrations against the inequalities created by international border policies. She has a special interest in bicultural, bilingual issues, including immigration, women’s and workers rights.

Zulma draws inspiration for her art from her background as a Chicana who grew up in Southern California. Her parents were farm workers. Because of the somewhat nomadic lifestyle that a farm worker’s daughter has, she’s managed to endure many hardships as well as generate this eclectic personality from so many experiences. Zulma ended up attending thirteen different schools ranging from Salinas to Mexicali, Mexico. Defeating all the odds, she is also the first in her family to graduate from High School.

Zulma also worked as an undergraduate Research Assistant for Professor Emeritus Halleck and later hired Zulma to intern for Deep Dish TV in the summer 1999 and 2001.

Zulma collaborated with Pauline Oliveros a piece called… AB-Time a cross-border iChat. AV Collaborative Dance Performance with Marsaille, France and Vancouver, Canada at Troy, New York.
URL to New Video Trailer Juarez Mothers Fight Femicide (2005)
URL’s to my Video Bodies and Boundaries: An Encounter at the Border (2001)
Click Here for Experimental Video Serialism Piece: 8×8 Launched (2004) FinalSequence.mov
URL to Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa a.c.
Zulma’s vlog.