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This session seeks submissions that critically engage with the evolving nature of borders and sovereignty between Mexico, Canada, and the United States. Amid rising political rhetoric around national boundaries and recent trade tensions that challenge in particular the sovereignty of Canada and Mexico, this session examines how visual artists, designers, scholars, educators, theorists, and other cultural workers are responding to these shifting geopolitical dynamics.

As session chair, I am a Canadian-born artist and university educator in Canada with an MFA from the United States. Despite historically stable diplomatic relations, I encountered difficulty crossing the US/Canada border when presenting projects. Today, tensions have deepened. The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) now advises against academic activity in the United States due to concerns over safety and political instability. Trade agreements like NAFTA and USMCA, framed as collaborative, were primarily shaped by politically conservative governments and have historically prioritized corporate and elite interests over those of artists and cultural producers.

This session welcomes interdisciplinary proposals exploring how border regimes and national policies shape or restrict cultural production, mobility, collaboration, and expression. Topics might include, but are not limited to, material, conceptual, and political borders between these nations; border-crossing as an artistic method; Indigenous sovereignty and transnational resistance; immigration and labour in the arts; and critiques of trade agreements through creative practice.

Proposals may address borders between or within any of the three countries. This panel aims to foreground underrepresented voices and expand discourse on how cultural workers confront and reimagine these boundaries.