YOU MADE OUR REALITY INTO A GAME?!?!
Pixels, Politics, and Play with Rafael Fajardo
Southern Utah Museum of Art (SUMA), Opening on June 9th, exhibition on view June 10 - September 23, 2023 | Guest curated by Emilie Trice
Colombian-American artist and educator Rafael Fajardo is the founding director of SWEAT (South West Ensemble for Art & Technology), a loose collective of digital creatives who develop socially-conscious video games as a means to explore cultural identities and complex political perspectives. Crosser and La Migra are two such video games, representing opposing viewpoints on the evolving dynamics at the US-Mexico border, exhibited as a diptych.
The hyper-pixelated retro imagery employed by Fajardo and SWEAT in these video games recalls early arcade graphics, invoking a sense of nostalgia and childlike naivete. By re-contextualizing the migration “crisis” at the US-Mexico border through digital gaming and vintage aesthetics, Crosser and La Migra represent the humanity inherent to both sides of this ongoing socio-political conflict, making space for cross-cultural empathy through the simple act of play.
