Borderlands. Francesco Anselmi. kehrerverlag, 136 pages. Editor: Renata Ferri.

Borderlands is a documentary essay shot along the US side of the border with Mexico between 2017 and 2019, at the height of the Trump era. The series aims to develop a narration capable of going beyond the emergency perspective under which border-related issues are often presented and to transport the complexity of this 3,600 kilometers long strip of land. Crossed by migrants and travelers for decades but also inhabited by a very diverse range of souls, the borderlands seem to become a different place from the two countries they separate. Francesco Anselmi is an award winning documentary photographer living in Milan, Italy. His work focuses on border areas and the various consequences contemporary border policies are having on the people living in there. He is currently working on a long-term project about border communities in the European Union. His images have been published and exhibited internationally.

A Central American family in US territory seconds after illegally crossing the border at a gate accidentally left open by construction workers. Tijuana / San Diego border. Mexico. December 2018.

Francesco Anselmi. Born 1984, currently lives in Turin. He graduated at The International Center of Photography in NYC, receiving the New York Times Foundation Scholarship. In 2012 he started a long term documentation about the consequences of the Greek economical crisis, that led him to receive the Chris Hondros Fellowship Fund in 2013 at the Eddie Adams Workshop, and the Visura Grant for Outstanding Personal Project in 2016. His work has since then focused on social issues and ongoing changes involving border areas in the Western society, from Europe to the United States of America. He has been an Oskar Barnack Award finalist twice (2014/2019) and has been awarded the 2019 Visa D’or for Daily Press in Perpignan. Francesco’s work has been published by The Wall Street Journal, Zeit, Liberation, Le Monde, L’Espresso, Courier International, Internazionale, XXI, Leica Fotografie International among others and exhibited internationally. In 2024 he published “Borderlands”, his first monograph, with German publisher Kehrer Verlag.

Activists during a demonstration against the construection of a new section of border fence that will cut in half an area sacred to the local native population. Lukeville, Arizona. November 2019.