By Annie Holub
Arizona Daily Wildcat
March 26, 1998

Pictures of the Northern Life

Here in the southwestern United States, especially in Tucson, we're less than 100 miles from the state of Sonora, Mexico; we identify so much with the word "southwest," but hardly ever realize that this area was also part of northern Mexico at one point in history. We share the desert, the heat, the rivers and mountains with Sonora, yet very few Americans ever cross over that chain-link border beyond the commercial storefronts of Nogales to see what life is like in our neighboring country.

David Burckhalter, a Tucson resident, has been traveling through Sonora for the past 25 years, photographing the people, hoping to expose what's known as "la vida norteña" -"the northern life" - to those of us who haven't seen the intricate life of Sonora for ourselves. A large collection of his work is currently on display at the Tucson Museum of Art through May 24, to promote Burckhalter's new book of the same title, La Vida Norteña.

Burckhalter's reflective black and white photographs capture real people in motion, in the midst of ceremonies, like on Virgin of Guadeloupe Day, or in the middle of their everyday activities. "Benjamin and his Brood of Little Dogs" shows an old man standing by a fire with several dogs in a semi-circle surrounding him, like a campfire audience, while Benjamin looks at the camera as if interrupted in mid-performance. "Cowboy Love" shows a man and a woman dancing, the woman's hair and skirt flaring out in a backward step, with a horse, head drooping, standing uninterested behind them.

The photos on display focus mostly on the indigenous people and inhabitants of small villages. The Seri, a group of native people who live along the western coast of Mexico, mostly in Desemboque, are a frequent subject of Burckhalter's. In 1976, he published a photobook of the Seri, who are known for their sleek ironwood carvings and biomorphic baskets. Burckhalter catches these people in album-like snapshots; a woman called Yolanda stands with fishing boats on the beach in one photo and a small boy grins widely, leaning against a wall in another.

"Coming Through the Fence to go Shopping on the American Side" shows a couple of young people happily climbing over each other through a hole in the border chain-link fence. The picture is subtly ironic; the people are smiling, almost laughing, exactly in the way people about to embark on a relaxed shopping trip are, but they're crawling illegally through an old fence that has been the subject of years of turmoil. "Fence on the Border Between Nogales, Sonora, and Nogales, Arizona" shows a similar bent hole in the fence, and the congested cityscape of the two cities meshing along it, with similar irony; the cars parked along one edge are at the opposite angle of those on the other side, just like a row in a parking lot.

The pictures are journalistic, documenting people and their societal stories, which is what Burckhalter wanted to achieve with this exhibit; it's education through art. It's possible to both appreciate the contrast and the stark beauty of things like the wrinkles on a 100-year-old Mayo woman's face and a blurry image of a donkey-drawn wagon rolling down a dirt road, and view the images for what they depict in content. It's not glorified or idealized or enhanced by anything in any way - just a straightforward glimpse into the life that is la vida norteña.