


































Tijuana’s Art Scene, Artist’s Migration


CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 1-11) 

Tijuana’s Art Scene, Artist’s Migration 
 
 

Jimena Salas 
Department of Sociology 

California State University, Los Angeles 
 
 

This paper is a research proposal aimed at answering the question of why 
artists from other Mexican cities or from abroad decides to move to 
Tijuana, a city that despite offering one of the most attractive artistic 
scenes in México, is also one of the most dangerous ones. Among the 
several factors that can explain this social phenomenon are: the closeness 
to the United Sates, the ideological and aesthetic style of the creative 
scene, the art programs that the different universities and institutions 
offer, or even the city itself. The goal of this exploratory research is to find 
out which of these, if not others, play a significant role. A qualitative study 
will be conducted and during the documentation stage there will be 
observation and interviews in order to help identify and discover the most 
relevant trends. Meanwhile, a snowball sampling method will be used to 
find the subjects of this study. In addition, the subjects will include artists 
not from Tijuana, artists from Tijuana, artists that have not left their 
cities, and owners of galleries and cultural/ educational institutions.  
 

INTRODUCTION 
 
1The border cities of northern Mexico 
have been generally treated as spaces 
that do not favor the development of 
culture. Tijuana has proven this 
statement wrong for decades. As 
Cuauhtémoc Ochoa has argued, despite 
the difficulties and obstacles that this 
city has faced in the last decades, the 
cultural and artistic activity and 
production has not stopped in the fields 

                                                        
Jimena Salas is a graduate student in the 
Department of Sociology. Her paper was 
originally submitted as a research proposal to 
SOC. 490 Quantitative Research Methods in 
Sociology, taught by Dr. Gretchen Peterson in 
Fall 2010. 

of fine arts, popular expressions or in the 
vanguard arts (2009: 323). In turn, 
several artists from other Mexican cities 
and even other countries have moved to 
Tijuana due to their attraction to the art 
scene.  

The objective of my research is 
to analyze why artists from other 
Mexican cities or from abroad make the 
decision to move to Tijuana, a city that 
despite offering one of the most 
attractive artistic scenes in México, is 
also one of the most dangerous ones. 
Among the several factors that can 
explain this social phenomenon are: the 
closeness to the United Sates, the 
ideological ideas and aesthetic style of 
the creative scene, the art programs that 



TIJUANA'S ART SCENE by Jimena Salas  2 
 

CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 1-11) 

the different universities and institutions 
offer, or even the city itself. My goal is 
to find which of these, if not others, 
plays a preponderant role.  

In addition to providing insights 
and a better understanding of Tijuana’s 
art scene, the broader purpose of this 
research is to contribute to the increasing 
literature in sociology that highlights the 
close relationship between art and 
society. Art provides a different face to 
the public space and given its significant 
impact in the way a society behaves, it 
should be considered a central topic in 
sociology. Although these types of 
studies can easily turn subjective, we 
cannot avoid the fact that art plays a 
relevant role in society, providing very 
meaningful results in societal studies. As 
an individual experience, art mediates 
human’s conception of reality. However, 
in a much broader sense, there have been 
art movements that have been anti 
systemic and have been very critical of 
their time. 

In the following document I talk 
about the characteristics of the city of 
Tijuana, the relationship between the 
educational institutions and culture in 
this northern city, and the five different 
events that have characterized the last 
three decades of the art scene. 
Additionally I discuss the theory of 
Richard Florida in which he argues that 
in order for a city to attract creative 
people, generate innovation and 
stimulate economic development, it 
needs to offer three different 
characteristics; technology, talent, and 
tolerance (2005: 37). Furthermore I 
analyze a similar case to the one in 
Tijuana that took place in San Miguel de 
Allende, a historic town located in the 
eastern part of the state of Guanajuato in 

Mexico's Bajío region. Although these 
cities are very different and their creative 
scenes have very distinct origins and 
characteristics, artists from abroad were 
interested in migrating to these places 
because of the beauty of the locations, 
the jobs related to art, and the art schools 
offered in the area. The final part of this 
work talks about the reasons I chose an 
exploratory research, describes the 
method I will use, and assembles the 
conclusions. 
 
THE CITY OF TIJUANA 
 
 In order to understand the social 
phenomenon of the artists in Tijuana, I 
find relevant to first describe some of the 
general aspects of the city. Adriana 
Cadena argues that thinking Tijuana is a 
complex task, especially because of the 
myths, stereotypes, legends and 
academic discourses that have 
historically idealized and influenced 
their own configuration (2010:65). 
Tijuana, located in the northern region of 
Baja California, México, was established 
120 years ago and is part of the 
framework region known as the Cuenca 
del Pacífico (Pacific Basin), whose main 
poles of development are Los Angeles, 
California, and Tokyo, Japan. Tijuana 
has more than 1 and a half million 
inhabitants and has a complex social 
fabric. According to Cadena, the social 
fragmentation that Tijuana presents is 
associated to the fact that it is a city of 
migrants whose demographic 
composition is heterogeneous (2010:68). 

With respect to the economy, the 
assembly plant (maquiladoras) industry 
is the most relevant economic activity, 
followed by the entertainment industry, 
the construction industry, and the 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baj%C3%ADo


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CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 1-11) 

manufacture of metallic and nonmetallic 
products (González 2004:53). In 
addition, the impact of the United States 
(US) in Tijuana has shaped the life of its 
inhabitants in many ways. For example, 
the prohibition on the production and 
consumption of alcoholic beverages in 
the US from 1920 to 1933 caused the 
development of an industry in the border 
of Mexico, including Tijuana, devoted to 
help the Americans to get the alcohol 
they could not get in their own country 
(Piñera 2007:9). Even now there is still 
an important industry in Tijuana that 
specializes in serving American 
consumers.  

In addition, Tijuana is a city 
where it is very easy to identify all the 
tendencies and characteristics of 
globalization, including: 1) mass-media 
consumption, 2) strong presence of 
transnational corporations, 3) 
multiculturalism, given the huge 
migratory flow, 4) high volume of 
tourism, 5) high consumption levels of 
technology, and 6) the intense and 
constant interaction with international 
markets (Iglesias 2009: 38; Cadena 
2010: 65). 

Another characteristic of the life 
in this northern Mexican city is the 
violence associated with the growth of 
organized crime, a problem with no 
short-term solution. For example, only in 
2009, 650 persons were executed in 
violent acts related to drug cartels. 
Although a serious problem, authors like 
Cadena have argued that having the 
media only present alarming stories 
about this problem has led to the 
perception that the violence affects every 
citizen’s regular life and that the 
problem has no solution (2010: 76).  

Remarkably, within this context, 
different areas of Tijuana’s cultural life 
has experienced a significant increase in 
recent decades, gradually acquiring a 
particular diversity, richness and 
complexity that currently defines the 
cultural field of this city. Furthermore, 
compared to other border towns, 
Tijuana's cultural life has had a much 
more significant development, which is 
expressed in various forms of 
production, promotion, distribution, and 
consumption of cultural goods and 
services (Ochoa 2009: 325). 

 
CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT AND 
EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 
 
 From Ochoa’s point of view, the 
evolution of Tijuana’s cultural field has 
been closely linked to the education 
sector and its traditionally very rich offer 
of artistic programs –especially if 
compared with other northern cities. In 
1939 the city began to grow the Instituto 
Técnico Superior de Agua Caliente, 
which quickly became a stimulus for 
culture. At that time, Ochoa proposes, 
the artistic and cultural activities were 
socially understood as an occasional 
hobby and also as an excuse to do 
charity events. In 1957 the Universidad 
Autónoma de Baja California (UABC)2 
was created, consolidating the local 
educational system. The first formal 
cultural promotion activities organized 
by the UABC began in 1961 with the 
creation of Departamento de Difusión 
Cultral (DDC). For Ochoa this was a 
central event because it was a reflection 
of the relationship between the 

                                                        
2 State public university. 



TIJUANA'S ART SCENE by Jimena Salas  4 
 

CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 1-11) 

university, the cultural community, and 
the city’s society. 

Furthermore, Ochoa suggests that 
along with the efforts made by 
educational institutions, since the 1950s 
there was a group of activist citizens 
involved and concerned with the city’s 
life, which decided to assume, as one of 
its goals, supporting artists and bringing 
culture closer to the people. These 
individuals were involved in the creation 
and strengthening of governmental areas 
and cultural organizations that dealt with 
some segments of the city's cultural life.  

Moreover, Ochoa states that 
despite the weakness and instability of 
their projects and how improvised and 
pragmatic their labor was, as cultural 
promoters and advocates, their actions 
became crucial because they filled the 
vacuum left by governmental institutions 
in the cultural field. This was especially 
relevant because, as Ochoa mentions, the 
vision and policies imposed by the 
federal government on the northern 
cities were not always well received, 
generally because they were 
disconnected from the local reality.  

Although the relationship 
between the border and the federal 
government was not always a good one, 
the image that each had over the other 
changed over time and this could be 
perceived in actions and expressions of 
the various political actors, economic, 
social, and cultural rights. One outcome 
of this process of recognition was the 
creation and establishment of federal 
educational and cultural bodies in the 
city of Tijuana. Furthermore, the 
establishment of the Centro de Estudios 
Fronterizos del Norte de México, the 
predecesor of Colegio de la Frontera 
Norte (COLEF), and the Universidad 

Iberoamericana (UIA) favored the 
development of scientific research and 
academic activities that soon got 
interested in the study of various 
economic, political, and cultural 
phenomenons of the city and the region. 
These educational centers had the labor 
to promote and disseminate the regional 
creative work since their cultural 
projects had some institutional 
continuity. 

 
LAST TWO DECADES OF THE 
20TH CENTURY AND THE FIRST 
ONES OF THE 21ST CENTURY  
 
 Tijuana’s artistic life during the 
last three decades has been characterized 
by five different events, all of them 
illustrative and useful to understand the 
present situation of this city’s art scene 
and how it has been able to gain 
international recognition. The first event 
took place in the 1980s with the 
emergence of Border Art 
Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo 
(BAW/TAF), a group of politically 
concerned artists from Tijuana and San 
Diego. This was a multicultural group of 
Mexicans, Americans, and Chicanos that 
wrote and made art about the border for 
five years. BAW/TAF became very 
famous and ‘border art’ became a 
popular theme in the art world 
(Berelowitz 1997: 69). The second event 
occurred in the 1990s with the creation 
of inSite Tijuana/San Diego (organized 
in 1994, 1997, 2000, 2005), a 
contemporary art project based in the bi-
national region of San Diego-Tijuana 
dedicated to commissioning and 
promoting new works by artists in the 
public domain. This brought thousands 
of people, both artists and academics, to 



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CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 1-11) 

the border from all over the world. 
Tijuana's artists began to collaborate 
with artists from outside and vice versa.  

The third event was the 
emergence of Colectivo Nortec, a 
musical ensemble from northern 
Mexico. Their musical genre mixes 
electronic beats with traditional northern 
music. Nortec Collective's second 
album, Tijuana Sessions, Vol. 3, 
(Nacional Records) received very good 
reviews and was nominated for two 
Latin Grammy awards in 2006 
(Valenzuela 2004: 30). The fourth event, 
also related with Nortec, was ARCO 05, 
a yearly art fair held in Madrid, Spain, 
that in 2005 had Mexico as the guest 
country with Tijuana invited to 
participate in the event. Finally, the fifth 
moment was Strange New World: Art 
and Design from Tijuana (2006), the 
first major traveling exhibition that 
showed over fifty works by twenty of 
Tijuana’s most important contemporary 
artists, architects, designers, and 
filmmakers.  

 
SIMILARITIES WITH THE CASE 
OF SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE 
 
 Although San Miguel de Allende 
and Tijuana are very different cities in 
many respects, they both have a relevant 
art scene and have artists from other 
parts of México and abroad. While San 
Miguel de Allende, a colonial historic 
town located in the state of Guanajuato, 
was founded in 1542 and has around 
130,000 inhabitants, Tijuana is a 
relatively new metropolitan area that is 
among the sixth largest cities in Mexico.  

During the 1950s an important 
group of Canadians and Americans 
migrated to San Miguel de Allende, 

setting the pillars of the solid foreign 
colony that later emerged (Fenebock 
2003: 93). The Peruvian diplomat and 
artist Felipe Cossio del Pomar founded 
the Instituto Allende (School of Fine 
Arts) in this small city, motivated by the 
“quality of the light”. Since its 
foundation, the Instituto Allende was 
incorporated to the University of 
Guanajuato for the Master of Arts and 
therefore received the recognition of 
several universities in the United States. 
This gave the new school a privileged 
position and by 1960 it grew both in size 
and scope and also began to offer 
graduate studies.  

Attracted by the possibility of 
obtaining academic credit for art studies 
in Mexico, a growing number of 
American students in San Miguel found 
a place to come back to frequently, 
sometimes bringing friends with them. 
Furthermore, in the sixties the city 
became a center for the counter culture 
movement. I found this case interesting 
because like Tijuana, this case is an 
example of how the educational 
institutions may be one of the things 
than can attract artists to migrate. 

 
RICHARD FLORIDA, THE 
CREATIVE CLASS 
 
 The study of the creative class of 
Richard Florida, as I mentioned in the 
introduction, is important to this study 
since it delineates interesting points that 
are helpful in building the research 
questions. However, his main focus is 
economic growth and for that reason it is 
not a model than can be applied in its 
totality because that it not the purpose of 
this research. Florida argues that there 
are three key factors to attract creative 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nacional_Records
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_Grammy


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CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 1-11) 

people, generate innovation, and 
stimulate economic development; he 
calls them the 3 T’s--Technology, 
Talent, and Tolerance (2005:37). Florida 
defines tolerance as openness and 
inclusiveness; talent as a highly 
talented/educated/skilled population, 
tolerance as a diverse community, and 
finally technology as the concentration 
of innovation and high technology in a 
region. I will use these characteristics to 
raise some of the research questions. 
 
RESEARCH QUESTIONS 
 
 Since the art scene of Tijuana has 
caused the migration of artists to this 
northern city, the purpose of this 
exploratory research is to provide 
insights into and comprehension of this 
situation. The reasons for that social 
phenomenon to happen can be related to 
several variables. Artists can feel 
attracted to Tijuana because of the 
closeness to the US (San Diego and Los 
Angeles) or the political or ideological 
ideas of the art scene. A different 
motivation could be identification with 
the aesthetic proposal of the art scene. 
Since the city offers a rich variety of art 
programs, the purpose of an artist to 
move to Tijuana could be to study. 
Finally artists from other cities can be 
interested in moving to Tijuana because 
of the characteristics of the city like its 
openness, diversity, contrasts or 
multiculturalism. 
 
METHOD 
 
 To have a richer analysis of the 
reasons and thoughts of why certain 
artists from other Mexican cities and 
countries decide to move to Tijuana I 

decided to do a qualitative study. During 
the documentation stage I will do 
observation and conduct interviews and 
with that information I will identify and 
refine the most relevant trends. 
 
OBSERVATION/FIELDWORK 
 
 The objective of the observation 
and fieldwork is to spend time in Tijuana 
to assist in art events (Entijuanarte 2010, 
September 26th – October 3rd), get to 
know their cultural and educational 
institutions and art galleries (Centro 
Cultural Tijuana, Colegio de la Frontera 
Norte, La Caja Gallery), and hang out in 
different public spaces where artists get 
together (bars, restaurants). The purpose 
of this stage is to take jotted notes of 
social interactions between artists and 
the characteristics of the places where 
they convene. Moreover, I will identify 
who is who within the different artistic 
groups in order to open the opportunity 
of knowing more people and make the 
social network bigger. The reason for 
visiting the art galleries and the different 
cultural institutions is to observe the 
artists’ work and to get to know some of 
the persons behind these places in order 
to be able to interview them later on. 
 
SOCIAL DISTANCE AND 
LIMITATIONS 
 
 I may find some kind of 
problems because I have only been in 
Tijuana twice and did not stay long. The 
lack of knowledge of the city may help 
in a way because I will go with fewer 
prejudices, but at the same time I could 
also miss relevant information because 
of it. In order to reduce this social 
distance, this summer of 2010 I am 



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CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 1-11) 

planning to stay a week to get 
familiarized with the city and some of 
their inhabitants. Another problem that I 
will face during the observation and 
interviews is that with the situation of 
danger and violence in Tijuana, I will 
have to be very careful and that may 
limit the freedom to move around the 
city and the frequency of my visits. 
 
TARGET POPULATION 
 
 The objective of the sample 
procedure is to contact young members 
of the artistic community of Tijuana that 
come from Tijuana and other Mexican 
cities or countries. It is also relevant to 
contact artists who have stayed in their 
cities, and have not moved in order, to 
be able to contrast their answers with the 
ones of the artists that have moved to 
Tijuana. The way to contact these last 
ones is going to be through the 
references of the artists that moved to 
Tijuana. Later on I will contact some of 
the owners of the galleries and people 
who work for the cultural institutions to 
include their perspective about the art 
scene. 
 
SAMPLING STRATEGY 
 
Since I did not have a social network 
within this group of artists, I previously 
built a directory just with artists from 
Tijuana. The type of procedure to build 
that previous list was a snowball 
sampling method. The first step was to 
prepare a list of everyone I knew from 
Tijuana or Mexico City that were related 
to the cultural life of Tijuana. I started 
with a list of 6 people. From these first 6 
contacts I was able to get 176 more 
contacts through their referrals. From 

those 176 contacts I was able to get 56 
more contacts. From those 56 last 
contacts I got 90 more contacts. This 
part took me several weeks, but once I 
started getting in touch with these 
persons a snowball effect occurred. I 
contacted different artists, people that 
work for museums (CECUT, Museum of 
Contemporary Art San Diego), 
universities (Colegio de la Frontera 
Norte), art-festivals (Entijuanarte, 
Bordocs) and other art organizations and 
institutions. It meant a lot of hard work 
but it was very fulfilling and exciting to 
receive so much support. In the end, 
from those 6 contacts and two web pages 
(www.archivobc.org, 
www.bajacalifornia.gob.mx/icbc/docto
s/PECDA2009-2010.pdf) where I found 
two directories of artists, I managed to 
build a directory of 328 artists from 
Tijuana. Another important point is that 
I was also able to contact people who are 
studying related topics about Tijuana. 
The final step is to build a similar 
sample with artists that come from other 
Mexican cities or countries and for that 
purpose I will use again a snowball 
sampling method contacting the persons 
of this first directory. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

http://www.archivobc.org/


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CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 1-11) 

 First contacts  
1 Daniela, Alatorre Producer, Morelia’s International Film Festival (Mexico). 

I studied with her my BA in Communication in Mexico City. 
2.  Pablo, Collada Sociologist Mexico City, knew a person doing a thesis about 

Tijuana’s art scene. 
3. Javier, Salas Playwright Mexico City, related to the theater scene of Tijuana. 
4. Jimena, Lara Worked for the Ministry of Culture in Mexico City, related to 

several artists from Tijuana. 
I studied with her my BA in Communication in Mexico City. 

5. Julio, Rodríguez Director of the art festival Entijuanarte in Tijuana 
6. Valeria, Valencia UCLA Ph.D Student, from Tijuana 
 Web Sources  
1. www.archivobc.org Tijuana’s artists archive. I found it while navigating in Google. 
2. PECDA List of beneficiaries (Artists from Baja California) of the 

stimulus program PECDA that the Government of Baja 
California published on its website. I found it while navigating 
in Google 

 
 

 

The following list shows the final list of contacts and the persons in bold are the ones 
who referred me to other contacts: 
 
1. Daniela Alatorre: 

1. Producer Galatea Audiovisual 
2. Second Producer Galatea Audiovisual: 

1. Manager of Casa del Tunel and ex-consul of art in Los Angeles  
2. Member of cultural alternative cultural space in Los Angeles, Farm Lab  
3. Independent curator in Tijuana and Los Angeles works at Casa del 

Tunel  
4. Curator at Tijuana and San Diego  
5. Architect, Professor, Artist in Tijuana and San Diego 
6. Visual Artist from Tijuana  
7. Manager of contemporary art event inSite Tijuana 
8. CECUT (Centro Cultural Tijuana) in charge of exhibitions: 
 43. List of 43 contacts of artists from Tijuana 
 
9. Curator, cultural promoter, Los Angeles and Tijuana 
10. San Diego Journalist interested in Tijuana’s Art  
11. Diffusion Manager, Colegio de la Frontera Norte,  
12. Literature manager CECUT Artist/Activist 
13. Bordocs Documentary Festival  
14. Filmmaker/artist, Tijuana 
15. Manager School of Arts, Mexicali 



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CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 1-11) 

16. Sub manager UABC (Universidad Autónoma de Baja California) 
campus Tijuana  

17. Manager annual design event EsquinaNorte -: 
 73. List of 30 Artists from Tijuana 
18. Writer/artist, Tijuana 
19. Curator/Artist, San Diego and Tijuana 
20. Artist, San Diego and Tijuana 
21.Writer/cultural issues Professor USC (University of Southern 

California) Los Angeles 
22. Writer, Tijuana 
23. Architect/Artist, Tijuana 

3. Producer- Bordocs: 
 42. (19) Visual Artists, Tijuana 

43. PhD Student studying Tijuana’s art scene UNAM (Universidad 
Autónoma de México, Mexico City) -: 
 76. (5) Visual Artists, Tijuana 

77. MA Student Social Anthropology CIESAS (Centro de 
Investigaciones Superiores en Antropología Social, Mexico City), 
thesis about Tijuana’s art scene  

4. Artist, Tijuana: 
 44. Assistant Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego 

45. Professor Colegio de la Frontera Norte,Tijuana, did interviews to 
several artists from Tijuana  

49. (4) Tijuana’s Artists 
2. Pablo Collada: 

 5. MA Student Social Anthropology CIESAS (Centro de Investigaciones 
Superiores en Antropología Social, Mexico City), Thesis on Tijuana’s artists 

  50. Artist, Tijuana 
3. Javier Salas: 

6. Theater group, Grupo Ojo, Tijuana 
4. Jimena Lara: 

7. Artist, Tijuana 
5. Julio Rodríguez: 
 76. (69) Artists from Tijuana who participated at Entijuanarte 09 
6. Valeria Valencia: 
 77. Plastic Artist, Tijuana 
7. www.archivobc.org 
 149. (72) Artists from Tijuana 
8. PECDA 

176. (27) Artists from Tijuana who won a state grant  
Juan T. Acosta: 
 56. (6) Musicians, Tijuana   

57. Musician, Tijuana: 
 90. (13) Musicians, Tijuana 

http://www.archivobc.org/


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CALIFORNIA SOCIOLOGY JOURNAL, 2011, VOL. 3 (ISSUE 1: 1-11) 

INSTRUMENT 
 
The number of interviewees is going to 
be determined by the responses I get. 
Whenever I achieve the point when I 
keep finding the same answers and I am 
able to determine a certain trend then 
that is going to be the limit. The goal of 
the interviews is to gather general 
information about the background of the 
person, like the type of artwork they do, 
and then the questions go deeper in order 
to find out about the reasons why artists 
move to Tijuana in relation to the 
closeness to the US, the ideological 
ideas and aesthetic style of the creative 
scene, the art programs that the different 
universities and institutions offer, or 
even the city itself. Because of my lack 
of experience in doing interviews it may 
be possible that the quality of the first 
few is not going to be as good as the last 
few.  
 
FINDINGS 
 
The findings show that the reasons why 
artists from other cities decide to migrate 
to Tijuana are mainly related to the 
characteristics of the city, the aesthetics 
of the art scene, and the closeness with 
the US. The majority of the artists 
consider that one of the most relevant 
reasons they decided to move to Tijuana 
was because they find the aesthetic of 
the artwork in Tijuana very interesting 
and attractive, and they identified 
themselves with it. An important group 
of artists migrated to Tijuana because of 
its diversity, vitality and dynamics.  
Additionally, another common reason 
for artists to migrate to Tijuana was its 
closeness with the US; since there are a 

lot of binational art events and programs, 
like with San Diego for example.  
 
CONCLUSION 
 
When I started studying the art scene of 
Tijuana I found out that many of its 
residents did not like the way people 
from outside used clichés like exotic, 
collage, hybridism, and prism to 
describe their city and creative life. Luis 
Humberto Crosthwaite, a renowned 
writer from Tijuana, put it this way, 
“Speaking about the border from the 
Mexican side is the enormous 
opportunity to discuss our daily bread as 
exotic dish, talk about discrimination 
and inequality as a case and not the daily 
reality.”2 For this reason I am very 
interested in understanding the art scene 
of Tijuana through the perspective of its 
inhabitants and in that way contribute to 
a better understanding of this social 
phenomenon. Furthermore, as I 
mentioned in the introduction discussing 
the development and characteristics of 
the art scenes of the cities should be a 
relevant topic for sociology because it 
broadens the perspective of a society and 
it opens a door for a deep 
comprehension of the social dynamics of 
a certain place. Talking about Tijuana’s 
art scene is an opportunity to see that 
this city has other faces besides the 
violent one.

                                                        
2 http://www.lehman.edu/ciberletras/v20/bellver.html, 
06.13.2009 

http://www.lehman.edu/ciberletras/v20/bellver.html


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REFERENCES 
 
Arreola, Daniel D. (1996) Border-city 

ideé fixe, Geographical Review, 
86:3, 356-369 

Berelowitz, Jo-Anne (1997) Conflict 
over ‘border art’, Third Text, 
11:40, 69-83 

Cadena, Adriana (2010) Tesis:  
Experiencias locales, 
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