This week on Arizona Illustrated… we start off a brand-new season by taking you to the borderlands where a multimedia project is trying to make sense of a beautiful and controversial environment; Books Save Lives is sharing innovative teaching methods and opening minds; Femme Photo Club is fostering community and developing skills among women and non-binary photographers and Cinema Tucsón is bringing some of the best contemporary and classical Mexican films to Southern Arizona.
Atascosa Borderlands
Photographer Luke Takata, and naturalist Jack Dash, have collected plants, taken photos and recorded oral histories in the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands since 2017. They have worked alongside ecologists, cattle ranchers, humanitarian aid workers, migrants, hunters, ex-border patrol agents, and Indigenous community members to create an archive of, and to better understand this remote 42-mile section of the US-Mexico border known as the Atascosa Borderlands.
Books Save Lives
Books Save Lives believes the right book at the right time transforms the mind and heals literacy trauma. Books Save Lives believes that all children deserve a reading journey that challenges their perceptions and reshapes their thinking. Daphne Russell’s introspective reading process helps fix the areas where reading growth has been stunted by providing the tools to not only become more literate, but to gain self-confidence. Her method is providing people of all ages access to reading relevant multiculturally diverse books and understand how the transformational power of books truly can save lives.
Femme Photo Club
Femme Photo Club invites woman and nonbinary photographers of all proficiencies into a safe space to develop their skills whether they’re using a top-of-the-line camera or a cell phone. Through the lens of its original members, see how the group has inspired personal growth and fostered community creativity.
Cinema Tucsón
Vicky Westover and Carlos Gutierrez are co-directors of Cinema Tucsón, which is a monthly film series at the Fox Theater where we celebrate Mexican Cinema. After watching the films, moviegoers also get the chance to meet with filmmakers during Q&A sessions. The series came to fruition as a result of a partnership between University of Arizona Latin American Studies, Cinema Tropical, Mexican Consulate, Fox Theater, and many other community members. This story will bring you a little taste of a Cinema Tucsón experience.
AZPM is a service of the University of Arizona and our broadcast stations are licensed to the Arizona Board of Regents who hold the trademarks for Arizona Public Media and AZPM. We respectfully acknowledge the University of Arizona is on the land and territories of Indigenous peoples.
By submitting your comments, you hereby give AZPM the right to post your comments and potentially use them in any other form of media operated by this institution.