How can walls become doors?
As a favor, we were asked to tell the story of two artists creating a mural for the San Diego Art Institute.
The challenge - what is so special about two men, two cultures, two passions and one wall? At a time when other walls are being built to divide cultures and keep people apart, how is this wall bringing people together?
We engaged directly with the artists and employed a documentary-style production to dig into the story behind the mural and what’s behind the Mano a Mano Project as a whole.
And what started as a small favor was chosen to become a documentary for KPBS Public Broadcasting.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Every wall is a door.”
Mano a Mano Documentary Pilot
Two Men. Two Passions. Two Cultures. One Wall.
Starting at either end of a 16-foot wall, two artists - Hugo Crosthwaite and Jose Hugo Sánchez compete "hand to hand" in live performance art, happening over five full days. Improvising a pictorial narrative on migration, dislocation, labor, and the plight of the Mexico-U.S. border region they call home, the physical, emotional, and mental contribution to this artistic feat culminates with a completed socio-political, narrative mural on view.
This project has been selected for a short documentary by the KPBS Explore project.
It is the artist's wish to take the performance art of the Mano a Mano Project on the road to museums across the US.
