Grantee
information

Atascosa Borderlands

Collage images of Native plants, flowers, and cacti.
Courtesy of Atascosa Borderlands Project
Courtesy of Atascosa Borderlands Project

Atascosa Borderlands is a transdisciplinary storytelling project combining documentary photography, oral history, botanical survey, digital archivization, and interactive design. The project initially developed out of a comprehensive botanical flora of a 203,799 acre section of the Coronado National Forest in southern Arizona known as the Atascosa Highlands. Since 2017, Jack Dash and Luke Swenson have worked with over 80 community members bridging social and political divides-ecologists, environmental conservationists, cattle ranchers, humanitarian aid workers, migrants, deer hunters, ex-border patrol agents, and indigenous community members to unearth and share the stories of the region. The project will help to educate a global audience on what there is to lose in the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands if action is not taken to heal the biological and cultural rifts which threaten these communities and landscapes.

Featured Media

Arid landscape with a long winding road.
Arid mountains with high clouds in background.
Man in white cowboy hat inspecting border wall.
Man in shorts and navy blue shirt standing in a field with arid mountains in distance.
Four men in cowboy hats holding down a calf for branding.
Lonely urban area near a border wall with barbed wire and brick buildings.
An older couple with a large Irish Wolfhound standing on a large outcropping in the desert.
Courtesy of Atascosa Borderlands Project
Courtesy of Atascosa Borderlands Project
Courtesy of Atascosa Borderlands Project
Courtesy of Atascosa Borderlands Project
Courtesy of Atascosa Borderlands Project
Courtesy of Atascosa Borderlands Project
Courtesy of Atascosa Borderlands Project