Sky Hopinka + Maggie Nelson
Part II of the PARA/normal Borders Conversation Series

Through film, writing, and critical inquiry, Sky Hopinka and Maggie Nelson explore how artistic practice becomes a way of knowing. Working across experimental film, creative nonfiction, philosophy, and visual culture, their presentations of individual work and conversation will consider how memory, perception, language, and embodied experience shape our understanding of place, history, and one another. Together, they will examine how art creates new ways of seeing, remembering, and imagining the world.

PARA/normal Borders is the 2026–27 edition of the MexiCali Biennial, a multidisciplinary exhibition and public humanities initiative exploring the borderlands as a space where visible and invisible histories converge. Rather than treating the border solely as a geopolitical boundary, the project approaches it as a cultural, psychological, ecological, and technological condition that shapes contemporary life.

Inspired by the concept of the borderlands as a “thin place,” PARA/normal Borders considers how migration, language, memory, Indigenous knowledge, media, surveillance, and speculative futures intersect across the California–Mexico border region. Through exhibitions, performances, publications, research initiatives, and public conversations, the Biennial invites artists, writers, scholars, and communities to examine the many ways borders continue to influence how we remember, imagine, and inhabit the world.

The PARA/normal Borders Conversation Series brings together MacArthur Fellows whose work expands our understanding of borders across literature, film, visual art, music, and critical scholarship.

This program is co-presented by the MexiCali Biennial and the University of California, San Diego Department of Literature’s New Writing Series, in partnership with the University of California, San Diego Geisel Library’s Archive for New Poetry, Department of Visual Arts, Indigenous Futures Institute, and Gallery QI. 

This event is free and open to the public. A public reception will immediately follow the event.

Please RSVP by Thursday, October 1, 2026. 

→  Learn more about PARA/normal Borders Discussion I: Josh Kun + Alex Rivera

→  Learn more about PARA/normal Borders Discussion III: Cristina Rivera Garza + Fred Moten